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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22506538">The Bad Sleep Well -10- Arcane</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/sharkcar/pseuds/sharkcar'>sharkcar</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>The Bad Sleep Well [10]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: Rebels, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Mentioned Darth Vader</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-02-01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-02-01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-04-28 19:07:49</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>19,646</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/22506538</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/sharkcar/pseuds/sharkcar</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>An imagining of the lives of clones after the Clone Wars. Just some simple men, making their ways in the universe, in all their tragicomic glory.</p><p>1- Zero- Wolffe is relieved to find his authority is an illusion<br/>2- Thirteen- Gregor is reminded of a joke<br/>3- One- Cody is offered a deal</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>CC-2224 | Cody &amp; Original Female Character(s), CC-2224 | Cody/Original Female Character(s), CT-7567 | Rex &amp; CC-3636 | Wolffe</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>The Bad Sleep Well [10]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1334464</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>9</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Zero</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Some dialogue taken from 'Family Reunion and Farewell' by Dave Filoni, Henry Gilroy, Kiri Hart, Simon Kinberg &amp; Steven Melching.</p>
    </blockquote><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>The end of an era.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Lothal</p><p><br/>
</p><p>Before they enacted the rest of their plan, the next day, the Rebels needed rest. Rex had obtained fresh food rations from somewhere and brought them with them when they packed up the Ghost on Seelos. The ground team had been starving for days. Rex was manning the fire and insisting everyone eat a proper meal of the nerf meat and government issue bread. The next day they would need their strength.<br/>
<br/>
It had all the character of a party during war time. Bittersweet reunions. Recountings of deaths. Accountings of events. Some stumbling out into the grass for hookups. The simple joy of having a moment of quiet companionship between the ceaseless chaos.<br/>
<br/>
Wolffe felt kind of isolated. He didn’t really KNOW any of them, Rex’s friends. They were all talking about people and places and events Wolffe knew nothing about. He was a little out of date on the news of the universe. He felt his age again. It occurred to him that some people probably felt more like an outsider than he did.<br/>
<br/>
Wolffe brought Governor Pryce some food. He hoped that by seeing her doing something ordinary, he could come to feel empathy and realize that they weren’t so different. The loth-wolves were surrounding her off away from the group, she didn’t dare try anything. Wolffe was unarmed. He set the plate down and undid her binders so she could feed herself.<br/>
<br/>
He sat down, waiting to take the plate away.<br/>
<br/>
Pryce found it unsettling having this deig watch her eat. She decided that was why he’d really done it, to terrorize her.<br/>
<br/>
He watched her, presumably to make sure she didn’t grab her fork and stab him.<br/>
<br/>
He did it mainly because he wanted to have a good memory of her and his droid eye needed to see to record anything.<br/>
<br/>
One of the loth-wolves sniffed nearer her plate. Wolffe did his best to send a thought. If these things were Force sensitive like Ezra said, they should have been able to read his mind if his mental vocabulary was something they had in common, even if he couldn’t sense anything back. Ezra had explained, you could tell them things and they’d get the message. Wolffe breathed deep and thought as hard as he could at the animal. ‘No!’<br/>
<br/>
To his utter surprise, the animal sat down and licked its drooly chops instead.<br/>
<br/>
Wolffe took out a ration bar from one of his belt pouches and brought it to the canine. It ate it, leaving behind his gooey licked hand. Wolffe looked at the drool and realized he hadn’t been so delighted since he was a toddler.<br/>
<br/>
Governor Pryce looked at him as if he was mentally deficient. She was considering stabbing him with her fork. She thought he’d be too dull witted to expect it.<br/>
<br/>
He came back over, sat down and went through a mechanical little wash ritual with some canteen water and a little soap. He paid special attention to making sure his hands were clean. Though he didn’t take out any food to eat for himself.<br/>
<br/>
Arihnda found herself watching him. She wondered if he was doing all that to impress her.<br/>
<br/>
Most men were very dismissive with her, which constantly made her angry. But the minute she had to assert herself, they would ask her why she was being such a bitch. Her authority was the only thing that freed her from having to care whose feelings she hurt.<br/>
<br/>
Wolffe folded his hands, as if intuiting what she’d been watching. He then looked at her hands.<br/>
<br/>
“Damn girl, that manicure is beautiful. When you slap a guy, I bet you put just the right amount of sing on it,” Wolffe said suddenly.<br/>
<br/>
It had been a while since a man had expressed being impressed with Arihnda about anything. That little shit Bridger had just been talking to her like a child who thinks adults are idiots.<br/>
<br/>
Despite herself, Arihnda found herself speaking back to the creature, “It’s all in the wrist.” She fantasized about putting this man under torture once she had these rebels in prison.<br/>
<br/>
She looked up at him and found him looking at her, leaning his head back, smiling a little. Then he turned his right palm up, with first two fingers extended. Then he curled them up twice in a come hither gesture. So she felt she had no other choice.<br/>
<br/>
She slapped him like he was her shit of a little brother peeping on her in the shower.<br/>
<br/>
“Wow! Again!” Wolffe smiled.<br/>
<br/>
Her palm already hurt from the impact. But she went for it.<br/>
<br/>
“Now the backhand!”<br/>
<br/>
Arihnda got the sense she was being used. She calmed down and went back to her food, “You think you’re funny.”<br/>
<br/>
“A little,” Wolffe admitted. He wondered what this woman would do when violence wasn’t an option. She seemed to fall back on it as a way of feeling powerful.<br/>
<br/>
“You’re all going to die, so it doesn’t matter. The Emperor is going to reward me with a better governorship and I can kiss this shit-world goodbye,” Governor Pryce found her footing.<br/>
<br/>
“If you don’t even want to be here, why are you willing to kill so many people to keep it?” Wolffe surprised her. It didn’t sound like the question of a low-IQ type, the way clones were supposed to be.<br/>
<br/>
“It is what the Emperor wants. He will reward me if I do what he wants. Simple as that,” she didn’t feel as if she had to explain herself. She certainly wasn’t going to apologize to some jar baby.<br/>
<br/>
“Transactive relationships are so fascinating to me. Most people don’t realize how much of worth is determined by who has the power,” Wolffe’s tone was naive, she thought he was probably repeating something he’d been told. But it occurred to her that he might be implying she was the Emperor’s whore.<br/>
<br/>
She was finding him tedious, so she decided to destroy him. “Now here’s what’s going to happen, we’ve been alone a reasonable amount of time. You are going to let me go or I will scream to all of your little friends that you have been raping me here. Even if they don’t believe me, some will have doubts. About the tactics you’re using, or the kind of people you are employing, or whether or not you are a credible witness. The incident will affect morale. Even if you win, any valor you gain for your little fight today will be tainted by a mark on your field conduct. It will be like a curse,” Arihnda didn’t hold back. She actively hoped she would drive him to suicide.<br/>
<br/>
Wolffe’s eyes widened. Arihnda thought it was from fear. She didn’t break her gaze. His hands began to tremble. She enjoyed it, drinking in his terror. The rush of feeling she’d won.<br/>
<br/>
Slowly, Wolffe reached into his belt.<br/>
<br/>
Arihnda was afraid for a moment it might have been too far. This lunatic might want to shoot her.<br/>
<br/>
Hands outright shaking, Wolffe held them out palms up, like a gesture of fealty. Something lay in his palms. A small, old electronic device. From the first year of the war. One of those music players that also recorded. The little light was on.<br/>
<br/>
Wolffe looked her in the eyes, not smiling, there was no triumph there, “Do you know what a betrayal that is of other women who actually try to report sexual assault and aren’t believed?”<br/>
<br/>
She stabbed him in the leg with her fork.<br/>
<br/>
Without a word, he picked up her empty dish, pulled out the fork from his thigh and left her. Kallus arrived and Wolffe limped up to him and pointed the fork, “Thirty credits, my ass!” like anyone was supposed to know what it meant.<br/>
<br/>
So Kallus responded the only way he thought appropriate, “Not now, thank you.”<br/>
<br/>
--  </p><p><br/>
</p><p>“You disgust me, traitor,” Governor Pryce spat over her shoulder at Kallus.<br/>
<br/>
“The day I betrayed your empire, Governor, was the day I finally stopped betraying myself,” Kallus stood up a little straighter. He had been reunited with the love of his life. They’d kissed right in front of her, drinking in her expression of disgust. It had been exhilarating.<br/>
<br/>
“You’ve given up years of service, a promising career, prestige, for what?” Governor Pryce interrogated. She had given everything to her career.<br/>
<br/>
Kallus wondered when the last time was that this woman had been properly made love to.<br/>
<br/>
“To join a band of failures who don’t stand a chance,” she taunted.<br/>
<br/>
Kallus struggled not to taunt back. Back when he was an Imperial, he probably would have. He had a good question locked and loaded that was just going to destroy her. He also decided ‘Band of Failures’ was a good name for a thing.<br/>
<br/>
“I think we do,” Ezra distracted.<br/>
<br/>
Kallus was thankful. He was trying not to be petty, but being around Imperials just brought it out in him.<br/>
<br/>
–</p><p><br/>
</p><p>“Alright, so the plan is, Gregor and I are flying with Ezra and the governor to the city in those gunships we captured. We’ll pose as her prisoners,” Rex explained slowly. Wolffe had insisted that Rex explain the plan to Gregor so that he knew what he was choosing.<br/>
<br/>
Gregor frowned, “I’m not going back inside! I won’t be a prisoner! Do you know what happens to people in prisons?”<br/>
<br/>
Rex sighed, “Gregor, we are just pretending.”<br/>
<br/>
Wolffe cackled, “Don’t believe him, Gregor, that’s how they get you!”<br/>
<br/>
Rex pointed a finger at Wolffe, “Stop messing around.”<br/>
<br/>
Wolffe looked at Gregor, “You want to go with Rex, Gregor, all the ladies are going with him.”<br/>
<br/>
Gregor shifted on his feet, “Oh, well in that case. Better than hanging out here with you and your sausage fest.”<br/>
<br/>
Wolffe had inexplicably been chosen by Ezra as base commander over Mart and Vizago, to see what could be salvaged from the crawler. And he had been given charge of Hera’s ship. Rex was not sure why Wolffe was being given a command on his second day in the Rebellion. Rex wondered whether it wasn’t a rank thing. Wolffe technically had been a commander longer than Rex ever had. But he would have thought that rank mattered less in his current organization than experience would.<br/>
<br/>
Rex had seen Wolffe telling Hera jokes in Twi’leki. He wanted to tell himself Hera wouldn’t be fooled by his brother’s nonsense, but she was laughing pretty sincerely.<br/>
<br/>
Rex had opted to stay with the General on the strike team.<br/>
<br/>
The three brothers faced each other in an attempt at a circle, the way Jedi customarily did, but with the three of them there, it was really just a triangle. No arcs.<br/>
<br/>
“Gregor, put on that armor I gave you,” Wolffe told him.<br/>
<br/>
“It was itchy,” Gregor excused.<br/>
<br/>
“Gregor!” Wolffe sounded more nagging than he’d like.<br/>
<br/>
Rex was in full Stormtrooper gear, holding the helmet under his arm the way he always used to do with his old sunbonnets. It was supposed to be for a costume, but as much as he hated that armor, Rex did move strangely comfortably in a full suit with all the components worn properly. It felt something like the old him. At the very least, he could be proud of how much better he was fitting in it since that Imperial had made fun of him for not needing the commissary.<br/>
<br/>
Wolffe and Gregor of course hadn’t changed anything. But Gregor wouldn’t change out of his smelly old Power Sliders tank top. Wolffe had a bad feeling about this.<br/>
<br/>
Rex tried to diffuse tension, “I’ll get him to put something on.”<br/>
<br/>
“Says you,” Gregor made that face that said he was and adult and didn’t want to be treated as if he was a mentally deficient child.<br/>
<br/>
“Are you gonna watch him? Really? Because he can stay with me at the Ghost, no problem,” Wolffe tried to be subtle and failed.<br/>
<br/>
“Oh, be on your own for once, you big baby,” Gregor carped back.<br/>
<br/>
Rex put his hand on Gregor’s shoulder, “He’ll be fine.<br/>
<br/>
Gregor stood up straight, “Rex, would you give us the Jedi homily?”<br/>
<br/>
Rex was caught off guard. Rex knew Wolffe had probably told Gregor that this was a thing. But he didn’t want to disappoint Gregor. So he tried his best.<br/>
<br/>
Rex cleared his throat, spat, cleared it again and began, “I was...um...talking to Ezra this morning. And he said that family is important. They are the beginning of who we are. That couldn’t be more true for us. We know what family means. Trust. Respect. Solving your differences with love. And we know that is a good way to be. Ezra said that there was a time when all of this planet lived in harmony and peace, in accord with the creative energies of nature. Like everything was family. May we hope for a day when it can be like that again. From this nightmare, may the planet wake. May the Force be with you.”<br/>
<br/>
“And also with you,” Gregor shook Wolffe’s hand reverently.<br/>
<br/>
“Um...What the kark does that mean?” Wolffe looked at Rex.<br/>
<br/>
“Maybe, we need to remember we’re all connected, balance should be restored,” Rex tried. “That’s what we’re doing today.”<br/>
<br/>
Wolffe did not look like that was adequate enough explanation.<br/>
<br/>
“Gregor, put on your armor,” Rex deflected.<br/>
<br/>
“Make me!” Gregor trotted off to one of the Imperial gunships carrying his gun.<br/>
<br/>
Rex looked apologetically at Wolffe, “He will!”<br/>
<br/>
Wolffe crossed his arms.<br/>
<br/>
“He will!” Rex backed away after Gregor. “You know I can make him.”<br/>
<br/>
Wolffe didn’t really think he had anything to say about it.<br/>
<br/>
Wolffe waved and wore their face of concern.<br/>
<br/>
--<br/>
<br/>
The ships flew into the sky, so Wolffe looked at Mart. Cripes, he looked so young.<br/>
<br/>
“So what’s your deal?”<br/>
<br/>
“Have you got any anti-anxiety meds. I just need a little something to get me through,” Mart apparently thought Wolffe looked like the kind of guy who sold drugs.<br/>
<br/>
Wolffe didn’t know whether to be offended or flattered that his personal fashion aesthetic was still shining through. He had always aspired to looking a little criminal.<br/>
<br/>
Vizago pulled out a tin, “I got you. What you need?”<br/>
<br/>
Wolffe realized Vizago looked as scummy as he did. Asymmetry did that to people, he guessed.<br/>
<br/>
The two discussed dosages and side effects before Mart made a selection from the prescription pills Vizago offered. Wolffe sighed. For karks sake. NOW it was like he had his Wolf Pack back.<br/>
<br/>
Just when he didn’t need that. Just at the moment when his entire supply of give a kark was dried up and he had reached peak nothing kriffing matters. At the very moment when he could most justify using again because what would it hurt? Now the real tests would begin.<br/>
<br/>
Wolffe looked at the selection for a long time. He knew every one, just by the size and shape. New were the stamps from the pharmaceutical companies that made them. Many of them had been Kaminoan patents originally. The colors and shapes practically shined up at him appealingly like cartoon treasure in a chest, reminding Wolffe of nice feelings.<br/>
<br/>
Vizago looked at him awkwardly.<br/>
<br/>
Wolffe sighed. Nothing mattered because why not? He never made any promises to anyone?<br/>
<br/>
Maybe he didn’t NEED to use prescription strength drugs to do his job, he hadn’t had them in years. But too often during his early life, they were just issued by his doctors just to keep him motivated to perform. Product maintenance, like taking a speeder back to the dealership.<br/>
<br/>
Truthfully, drugs might have helped in that regard, he found himself rationalizing.<br/>
<br/>
Wolffe focused on remembering the good old days. When he used to lead a specialty extraction team. Just like Ezra and General Syndulla had tasked him with there. When he was good at that. He used to know he was good at some things. When he had discipline. When he liked himself. When he knew his worth. Who was he kidding, he knew his worth was only as much work as the Republic could get out of him. That’s why they’d given him the drugs. They didn’t care about him.<br/>
<br/>
Then a strange thought jumped out at him. A face that liked him. But it was just for a moment. Like he looked over his shoulder just in time to see it melt away to nothing.<br/>
<br/>
“Nah, I’m good,” Wolffe politely refused. His hands were shaking and a tear stood in his one organic eye. The significance of it for him was huge, of course.<br/>
<br/>
But the others moved on with no interest. No pressure. Not like from the doctors. If they prescribed something, there had been little choice.<br/>
<br/>
He watched the other two, though. The way he always had his brothers. The way they did for him. Make sure nobody got too out of hand. He wouldn’t need to narc, neither one of them had more than one. They both calmed right down and focused.<br/>
<br/>
Huh. Maybe this was not so hard, Wolffe thought.<br/>
<br/>
Wolffe went through the inventory list of their supplies to make sure it was complete.<br/>
<br/>
He finally got up the courage to ask. “So, is self dosing common in the Rebellion?”<br/>
<br/>
Wolffe was trying not to seem judgmental.<br/>
<br/>
Vizago didn’t act like he felt accused, “Nearly everybody trade pills around. You practically have to. Is no doctors, where you see doctors?”<br/>
<br/>
“Isn’t self regulation dangerous?” Wolffe and his brothers had more medical oversight than any beings in history and they had nevertheless been absolutely devastated by addiction. They were children, so that level of restraint and common sense when they hit the streets of Coruscant where there were other temptations. No one noticed how dangerous it was because most brothers died in battle before their health had deteriorated from anything else. After the war, addiction was reason enough to decommission brothers with the old pentoparbital prescription.<br/>
<br/>
“Manufactured drugs iz not easy to get and they’re expensive,” Vizago explained.<br/>
<br/>
With clones, price had been no object. The Republic was paying.<br/>
<br/>
What had looked to Wolffe like an illicit drug market was actually emergency medical care. He was fascinated from an anthropological perspective. Wolffe thought he had ideas for how to improve it, make it safer. But he worried if he got involved, he might have too many temptations. He knew himself.<br/>
<br/>
His little base team was so efficient that they got done with all the tasks Wolffe could think of. They still had a lot of time to wait, so he resorted to old clone commander tricks like having them move around crates. </p><p><br/>
</p><p>--</p><p>They were in the Imperial ship. Gregor was having trouble seeing, even though he didn’t have a helmet. He was feeling a familiar feeling, but what of, he couldn’t be sure. Nothing good.<br/>
<br/>
Rex had observed that the vessels were similar to Republic gunships, like Gregor was supposed to find that reassuring. What the hell were those? They were something like something he might know, but they were more angular, less organic. It was disorienting. Gregor felt like he was looking at a datapad with a cracked screen.<br/>
<br/>
Gregor was wearing absolutely no armor, not even head covering, which Rex had already complained about. But Gregor wouldn’t put up with anything. It was like a sensory issue. His skin found it unbearable.<br/>
<br/>
Rex had promised himself he’d keep Gregor behind him. But then he realized he was not in command.<br/>
<br/>
“I don’t know about this plan Rex,” Gregor actually sounded afraid, with just a hint of a whimper. Like an anooba trembling at the vet. He hadn’t shaved or bathed in days. Rex worried Gregor might freeze or do something embarrassing like piss himself.<br/>
<br/>
Rex put on their reassuring face. “In my experience, when it comes to Jedi, the worse the plan, the better the result,” Rex fed Gregor some trite drivel. He thought it sounded profound.<br/>
<br/>
But Ketsu was giving him the eyebrow. Gregor didn’t look reassured.<br/>
<br/>
Wolffe’s voice in Rex’s imagination asked, “What the kark does that mean?”<br/>
<br/>
Rex had never felt his faith so undermined as lately, he thought. His brother was having an effect on him.<br/>
<br/>
--<br/>
<br/>
They set the ships down side by side on the platform. They formed up to play prisoners and guards. In his speeder bike trooper uniform, Ezra took point and he and Sabine guarded the Governor. Rex mildly cursed under his breath. Gregor wouldn’t wear the Stormtrooper armor, so he was playing a prisoner and was in front of Rex. And there were three other identical looking Stormtroopers there now.<br/>
<br/>
Rex brought up the rear, playing the guard. Things were already getting out of his control.<br/>
<br/>
Suddenly, Zeb the ‘prisoner’ pushed Ezra the ‘speeder bike trooper’ out of his way and ran up the platform. The real Stormtroopers fired on him. Ezra took out the bad guys with a lightsaber while their backs were turned. Not exactly Jedi style, Rex thought. Rex was relieved he just Force threw the rest. Sabine and Ketsu ran after Zeb for the doors. Zeb held them open and the women jumped inside.<br/>
<br/>
Everyone else jumped behind crates as cover from the fire of the Stormtroopers stationed on the platform. Stormtroopers blasted at them unendingly.<br/>
<br/>
Hera emerged from the landed ship and ran up with Chopper, taking out bad guys. “Go, go go!”<br/>
<br/>
Rex didn’t have time to look after Gregor as they ran to follow her. But he was thankfully keeping apace. Rex did see Gregor glance at the Stormtrooper bodies that littered the ground. He didn’t seem surprised or scared by them. They were like something he might know. Like something out of a dream. </p><p><br/>
</p><p>--</p><p><br/>
</p><p>“Hondo, go!” Ezra said over the comlink.<br/>
<br/>
They all heard a commotion behind the doors of the command center.<br/>
<br/>
“That’s our cue,” Ezra said. He was the only one who seemed to know what was going on.<br/>
<br/>
But the timing was working. The door opened. Rex started to relax. With a Jedi in command, they couldn’t go wrong. That’s what he’d meant. Imaginary Wolffe could quiet down.<br/>
<br/>
The team ran in to take over the command center, seeing a bunch of Imperials in cloth uniforms shouting and shooting the transparisteel viewport at Melch.<br/>
<br/>
Everyone was subdued while their backs were turned and surrendered. As Imperials often did when their own lives were at risk, rather than their Stormtroopers'.<br/>
<br/>
Rex was thankful. It had been a relatively bloodless scene so far.  He was able to finally take off the stupid helmet. Those things left him nearly blind. He stood with it held on his hip, aiming his weapon with the other arm.<br/>
<br/>
“Rex, lock them in a storage bin,” Ezra ordered.<br/>
<br/>
“Yes, sir, commander,” Rex thought that was pretty humane. He and Gregor led the group away.  </p><p><br/>
</p><p>--<br/>
<br/>
Rex, Gregor and Ketsu herded the Imps to the bin. A few of them spat insults. Mostly at Ketsu and her anatomy.<br/>
<br/>
One of the Imperials saw Rex’s Stormtrooper armor and decided he must be a turncoat, “I always knew the deig-troopers were the disloyal ones. You’ll turn on everybody, you shit-men. We should never have let any of you stay in the army. Should have killed the lot of you animals!”<br/>
<br/>
Rex had a flash of memory to a moment. Long ago. The same face. At the time of a hopeful cadet in the Republic Naval Academy who walked up to Skywalker and Rex as they strolled together at the base one day. The cadet had asked General Skywalker for an autograph. This guy had said that he idolized Skywalker and followed all his campaigns and that he was such a fan.<br/>
<br/>
Yet the man was a bigoted piece of Imperial scum. Rex was certain the man had harbored the beliefs he professed for a long time. Probably all the way back to when he had been praising Skywalker to his face, all the while refusing to acknowledge Rex’s presence at all.<br/>
<br/>
Rex had absolutely no remorse for what he was doing there. This was the antithesis of what his friend had stood for. Rex felt emotional. Anakin Skywalker was the first natural born person who had ever hugged him. His best friend. A person he told everything to. General Skywalker didn’t need fans like these. As far as Rex was concerned, the Empire was pure evil.<br/>
<br/>
Gregor looked curiously at all the men in the cloth uniforms. All the identical looking to him. Gregor, meanwhile, was having flashbacks to things he wasn’t so sure he knew, Republic cruisers. Repetitive simulator runs. Similar architecture, but different. Like a dream where you are somewhere you’ve never been, but somehow you *know* it is some place familiar. But all of these similar looking beings made him feel as if he was in a hall of mirrors where he was the only one that couldn’t reflect.<br/>
<br/>
-- </p><p><br/>
</p><p>Hera’s voice came over the comlink, “Specter Two to base, we’re in and we’ve taken the dome.”<br/>
<br/>
Wolffe couldn’t believe it.<br/>
<br/>
“Wait for me to signal for pickup,” the General ordered.<br/>
<br/>
“Acknowledged Specter 2, nice work. We’re standing by,” Wolffe was almost cheerful. For him, anyway.<br/>
<br/>
Mart was suddenly chatty, as if a switch had been flicked, “I forgot to tell you guys, Ezra gave me a special mission.”<br/>
<br/>
“What are you talking about? WATCH OUT!” Vizago’s eyes widened and he pushed Wolffe behind himself protectively.<br/>
<br/>
Wolffe was flattered.<br/>
<br/>
That noghri from before leaped out of the tall grass at him.<br/>
<br/>
Vizago got knocked over.<br/>
<br/>
The noghri leaped and kicked Wolffe down to the earth. Wolffe focused his mind as hard as he could, HELP!<br/>
<br/>
Mart shot twice. The noghri kicked him once to knock the blaster. Another to send Mart over.<br/>
<br/>
Wolffe grabbed the noghri guy from behind, just like subduing a brother in a bar fight. He held on a while, before getting a skull to the face. As usual. The noghri threw Wolffe over top of a crate and Wolffe hit his head. His last thought was that he really had to stop using that hold.</p><p><br/>
</p><p>–<br/>
<br/>
Rex was manning the central console. Keeping the place running so things appeared normal. Gregor was safely guarding Governor Pryce with Ryder. It was easy stuff, Rex thought.<br/>
<br/>
Gregor was trying to be friendly to Ryder, but he wasn’t good at small talk. Gregor decided it would be most polite to talk to Ryder about himself, “So...hats, huh? They’re pretty wizard.” Gregor still wasn’t sure which guy this was or whether he was supposed to know his name.<br/>
<br/>
Ryder gave him a confused look, so Gregor tried to think of something to talk to the lady about.<br/>
<br/>
Sabine turned from the panel, “Ezra, we’re ready.”<br/>
<br/>
Ezra and Sabine had already changed out of their costumes. They were small enough that they’d been able to wear something underneath. Rex had nothing else. But he wouldn’t put that helmet back on. Damned thing made it near impossible to see.<br/>
<br/>
Ezra called, “Kallus, you’re up.” Ryder joined Ezra nearby, looking like older and younger versions of the same person.<br/>
<br/>
Rex now had to make sure Gregor was okay. He didn’t trust that woman not to hurt his brother.<br/>
<br/>
Kallus went up to the coms panel, “Attention all personnel, protocol 13 is now in effect. Report to your action stations immediately. Repeat, protocol 13 is in effect.”<br/>
<br/>
They thought for a second they had it under control, but then a voice came back, “Hangar 2-7 to command, please confirm lockdown order.”<br/>
<br/>
“Command center to all units, the order is confirmed,” Kallus bluffed.<br/>
<br/>
“This is highly irregular. Please repeat sector authorization,” the Imperial replied.<br/>
<br/>
Rex noticed Hera’s expression was a little afraid, looking to her foster son. He was unperturbed.<br/>
<br/>
Rex knew Jedi could see how things would come out if their instincts were good. If Ezra didn’t feel danger, there probably was none.<br/>
<br/>
“Ryder, get ready,” Ezra directed.<br/>
<br/>
Rex was proud of Commander Bridger. He had a plan. Of course he did.<br/>
<br/>
Kallus stayed on line, “Repeat, the order is confirmed.” Typical Imperial protocol, absolute relentless insistence. Half the time that worked, from what Rex had seen.<br/>
<br/>
Ryder stepped up to the com, “This is ISB Colonel Yularen.”<br/>
<br/>
Rex smirked. Yularen’s accent wasn’t even close to that. HE could have done a more convincing Yularen.<br/>
<br/>
“Executing override code Base gamma zero,” Ryder recited. It was real code.<br/>
<br/>
“Imperial security, I wasn’t aware ISB was involved,” the guy from Hangar 2-7 responded.<br/>
<br/>
“That is the point of this exercise,” Ryder continued to shovel the poodoo.<br/>
<br/>
“Then...this is a drill?” the Imperial was worried he might have to cover his ass with some paperwork.<br/>
<br/>
“Is it? And do you always question the orders of a superior officer?” Ryder didn’t sound scary to Rex. His impression was kind of childish. But Rex knew Imps were cowards.<br/>
<br/>
The Imperial cleared his throat, and backed down, “Proceeding with Protocol 13 immediately.”<br/>
<br/>
Ryder stood up straight. Hera looked at the others, smiling with pride at her foster son.<br/>
<br/>
“Sounds like they bought it, ‘Colonel,’” Ezra said to Ryder. “Nice work.”<br/>
<br/>
Gregor grumbled to Pryce, “What work? Everybody always believes whatever crap white guys say when they send a transmission, yeesh.”<br/>
<br/>
Rex turned in disbelief. He got the impression Gregor was referring to something specific, since he pointed at Kallus when he said it.<br/>
<br/>
Pryce looked offended.<br/>
<br/>
Well, thought Rex, it had been enough to trick her.<br/>
<br/>
--<br/>
<br/>
Rex could hear them on the bridge above. He and Gregor remained on the lower level. He at his console, Gregor still guarded Pryce.<br/>
<br/>
“All units have returned to their duty stations and the dome is now secure,” Kallus reported.<br/>
<br/>
“Hera, start the launch cycle, Sabine, set the self-destruct,” Ezra commanded.<br/>
<br/>
Rex thought for a moment that it didn’t sound like a very Jedi-like plan. But he guessed it was a pretty Rebel plan. He wondered what his friend Saw would have to say about what tactics Rex found unacceptable now.<br/>
<br/>
“We do have a way off of this thing before it explodes, right?” Hondo asked what Rex had been thinking, which annoyed him.<br/>
<br/>
“That’s where the Ghost comes in to pick us up,” Hera responded.<br/>
<br/>
Rex felt reassured. Hera hadn’t thought she needed to tell him the whole plan. Because she trusted him to trust her. The way a good commanding officer needed to do with their men sometimes, Rex told himself. When it came to extractions, Wolffe was the best there ever was. Rex also felt relieved for some reason that Wolffe hadn’t been given a command just because he’d turned on the charm with the General. Rex didn’t know why it mattered, but it had bothered him for some reason.<br/>
<br/>
“Alright, let’s get airborne,” Zeb put in.<br/>
<br/>
“These thrusters haven’t been fired in years, it’s gonna take time to prime them,” Hera was at the controls.<br/>
<br/>
Gregor muttered to Governor Pryce the number of one of the jokes that Wolffe, Rex and Gregor had told each other so many times that they were numbered, “Thirteen!”<br/>
<br/>
Rex knew the punchline of the joke was, ‘That’s what she said.’” Rex felt like he was back in the Grand Army again. He’d missed fighting with his brothers.<br/>
<br/>
“You’re too late,” Governor Pryce purred. She was already looking forward to Thrawn tearing these people to pieces whether she lived or not.<br/>
<br/>
The star destroyer appeared, blocking out the light overhead.<br/>
<br/>
Gregor looked up at the ship and it seemed to trigger a memory, “Oh, good. Somebody finally called for reinforcements.”<br/>
<br/>
Rex was a little concerned. But if Gregor knew to follow Jedi, and they could keep Ezra in sight, this just might turn out okay.<br/>
<br/>
“It’s Thrawn,” Alexsandr said quietly.<br/>
<br/>
“Shutting down the launch cycle,” Hera looked back to the console.<br/>
<br/>
“No! We can’t just sit here!” Ketsu protested.<br/>
<br/>
General Syndulla reminded, “Thrawn is holding position directly overhead, if we launch the dome, we’ll crash into his ship and destroy the entire city!”<br/>
<br/>
“Carabast,” Zeb swore. “We’re trapped.”<br/>
<br/>
Ezra took over.<br/>
<br/>
Ezra didn’t sound nervous. “Chopper, put me through.”<br/>
<br/>
Once again, Rex felt reassured. He went over to check on Gregor.<br/>
<br/>
Thrawn’s hologram appeared at the coms panel.<br/>
<br/>
Gregor whispered to Rex, “Hey, that’s the Chiss admiral they were talking about!” He whispered loudly enough that nearly everybody in the room could hear.<br/>
<br/>
“Governor Pryce is our prisoner...” Ezra began his speech.<br/>
<br/>
Gregor continued whispering, “You know, Wolffe was telling me that a brother gave a Chiss a blowjob once.”<br/>
<br/>
“...with every trooper, pilot and officer trapped inside….” Ezra continued.<br/>
<br/>
“They’ve got no balls, those things,” Gregor persisted.<br/>
<br/>
“You’ve failed, Thrawn. Leave Lothal and we might let your troops out before we blow the dome to pieces,” Ezra looked triumphant.<br/>
<br/>
“Are you quite finished?” Thrawn hologram asked. “If you truly wish to save Lothal, Commander Bridger, the only term I’ll accept is your immediate and unconditional surrender.”<br/>
<br/>
Rex had to go back over to his console to stop himself from laughing at Pryce’s face.<br/>
<br/>
“Why would I surrender when I hold your entire army prisoner?” Ezra seemed to think he was the smarter of the two.<br/>
<br/>
“No, you’ve simply moved my assets to a safe position. So that I can bombard civilians of your home without incurring Imperial casualties,” Thrawn answered casually, giving them a look at his figural balls at least.<br/>
<br/>
“Rex, raise the planetary shields!” Sabine exclaimed.<br/>
<br/>
“The generator just went offline!” Rex knew at any time that he could die on this mission, but this was the first time he was really afraid.<br/>
<br/>
Ezra might not have this in hand after all.<br/>
<br/>
Sabine checked the panel, “Someone engaged the manual override at the power terminals!”<br/>
<br/>
Thrawn went on, “Your shield generator is under my control. Just so that you understand that my intentions are genuine-”<br/>
<br/>
“Hehe. Gen-yune,” Gregor chuckled. He mumbled at Pryce, “Giving me a pedo vibe, this guy.”<br/>
<br/>
“I shall demonstrate my power. Open fire,” Thrawn’s sociopathic intonation rang.<br/>
<br/>
Images from it could be seen on the projected hologram. A scorched city with smoke rising.<br/>
<br/>
“Enough, I surrender!” Ezra relented after about 15 seconds of Lothal City’s bombardment.<br/>
<br/>
The Chiss responded, “I await your arrival, and, make no mistake, come alone. If you attempt any heroics, I will resume the bombardment and destroy your city. And then your friends.”<br/>
<br/>
Thrawn disappeared.<br/>
<br/>
“Ezra!” Hera followed her foster son, a teenage boy going off alone to meet some creepy adult. She thought she’d given him the talk about this.<br/>
<br/>
The Jedi handed his saber to Chopper.<br/>
<br/>
“I understand that you think you need to do this, but,” Hera followed him down the stairs. Rex could see them clearly.<br/>
<br/>
He turned to her. More man now than child, “This is what I was meant to do.”<br/>
<br/>
“There’s another way,” his foster mother pleaded. “There’s always another way!” She put her hands on his shoulders, holding fast, “I won’t let you go.”<br/>
<br/>
“Alright, if this isn’t the way, then what is?” Ezra asked.<br/>
<br/>
Rex had never heard a Jedi ask that. They had always acted like they had all the answers. Self-assured that they knew more than mere mortals.<br/>
<br/>
Hera remained positive, “Let’s see what we have to work with.”<br/>
<br/>
They all automatically assembled around the central console in a circle. It was military custom. Borrowed from the Jedi Order. They were all looking at a perfectly good hologram of the dome.<br/>
<br/>
“Charge up the dome’s cannon, blow him out of the sky,” Zeb suggested the aggressive route as usual.<br/>
<br/>
“Easy,” Rex put in, “Our turbo lasers are no match for that star destroyer.”<br/>
<br/>
“Even if we do ‘blow him out of the sky’, we don’t want him to crash down onto the city,” Kallus explained. His boyfriend wasn’t the thinking one in the relationship.<br/>
<br/>
Hera insisted, “The only answer is to find a way to get the shield up,”<br/>
<br/>
“Hera, over here,” Sabine said suddenly, “We should use the primary schematic if we’re going to find a way to raise the shield.”<br/>
<br/>
Everyone looked, but they were all slightly confused why she was saying it. The other graphic was fine. They didn’t NEED the separate visual, Rex thought. They all gathered around the screen in a messy group as Sabine gestured. “We need to get down here and take control of the power terminals.”<br/>
<br/>
Zeb kept focused on the practical, “How do we get past all the Imperials we’ve locked in here with us.”<br/>
<br/>
“We can bypass the the upper barracks levels using the executive turbolifts,” Kallus knew Imperial security, if he knew anything.<br/>
<br/>
Hera summarized before giving her orders, “So we got a plan to get the shields up, the trick is to pull it off before Thrawn loses patience. We need to stall him somehow. Ezra...”<br/>
<br/>
One of their stolen gunships could be seen out the viewport, flying up into the smog filled sky.<br/>
<br/>
“We have to stop him,” Rex insisted. Outwardly he was annoyed. Inwardly, he was livid. Ezra was the one leading the mission! He was the only Jedi they had left!<br/>
<br/>
“Ezra!” Hera spoke into the comlink as the teenager took off again. “Don’t do this!”<br/>
<br/>
To Rex’s surprise, he realized that it was exactly what Skywalker would have done. And Commander Bridger hadn’t been irresponsible. He had set up a chain of command, he had backup plans. This wasn’t the first time a Jedi had sacrificed themselves to save everyone.<br/>
<br/>
Sabine stepped up and put her hand on her foster mother’s shoulder. “Hera, We have to trust him. The best way we can help is to get that shield up so when Ezra makes his move, we’re ready. We have to assume the generator room will be well guarded. So we’ll need two teams to hit it from different sides if we’re gonna capture both power terminals. That is, if you agree, Hera.”<br/>
<br/>
Hera smiled. “It’s a good plan.” Hera knew how to stay focused on the mission, no matter what arose.<br/>
<br/>
“The best chance we’ve got.”<br/>
<br/>
That, as far as Rex was concerned, was true. Stalling for the Jedi was another one of his specialties, now that he thought about it.<br/>
<br/>
Chopper sounded.<br/>
<br/>
“Stormtroopers!” Sabine translated.<br/>
<br/>
They all aimed weapons at the door.<br/>
<br/>
“It appears my troops have decided your drill is over,” Governor Pryce told them.<br/>
<br/>
–<br/>
<br/>
“Wolf, wolf!” Mart shouted.<br/>
<br/>
“What?” Wolffe sat up. Usually, in the old days, when he was knocked out cold, he woke up feeling terrible. But, surprisingly, he was not feeling too bad. This was actually pleasant compared to his old hangovers. He began to do some stretches.<br/>
<br/>
“I mean...not you, look,” Mart said.<br/>
<br/>
The loth-wolves were back.<br/>
<br/>
“Hey, Vizago, get up,” Wolffe shouted.<br/>
<br/>
“What’s happen now?” Vizago sounded disoriented.<br/>
<br/>
“We were ambushed by that creature,” Wolffe didn’t mean ‘creature’ in the sense that he didn’t know it was a species of sentient. He just didn’t like the guy or who the guy worked for.<br/>
<br/>
The previous night, Ezra and the others had explained to him about the Chiss admiral. Wolffe had then told Gregor an absolutely true story about an encounter his brother Hardcase had had with a Chiss guy once in a gay bar refresher. “Thrawn’s pet. Without the help of our friends here, we’d have been goners.”<br/>
<br/>
“Speaking of gone, the last gunship is missing,” Mart indicated.<br/>
<br/>
“That thing is gonna warn Thrawn about our attack,” Wolffe really didn’t like the things this Thrawn guy did to people. The only thing Wolffe hated more than awful people in power was people who acted servile to them.<br/>
<br/>
“It’s just like Ezra said.” Mart ran to the ship, “Come on.”<br/>
<br/>
“Wait, what does that mean? What do you mean it’s just like Ezra said?” Wolffe got to switching the ship systems for flight. He was technically in command. But he’d always taken a pretty lax view of what that meant. He used to give his sergeants a lot of say in how things were run in the 104th. Mostly because he didn’t want to have to do everything himself. Family to him meant teamwork. He liked how Ezra approached that.<br/>
<br/>
“Ezra told me there was a chance Thrawn would get back to the capital before they finished their plan. And if it looked like that was the case, he gave us a special mission,” Mart was suddenly very chatty.<br/>
<br/>
Wolffe was relieved that his own authority was just a ruse. Mart had the special assignment. And he was competent.<br/>
<br/>
They kept the ship low as the loth-wolves ran along below them.<br/>
<br/>
“Ezra wanted us to go into high orbit on Lothal and send out a signal beacon on frequency zero,” Mart seemed completely self-assured about what he was saying.<br/>
<br/>
It surprised Wolffe, he would have never been that brave when he was Mart’s size.<br/>
<br/>
“Frequency zero, nobody uses that any more,” Wolffe had no idea what it even was. He was bluffing because he really wanted to see where Mart was going with this, “Who are we supposed to be...who are we supposed to be contacting?”<br/>
<br/>
“Not sure it’s a who, more like a what,” Mart said, with all conviction. “And if I told you what, well that’s the part you might not believe.”<br/>
<br/>
Wolffe and Vizago looked at each other in more disbelief than surprise.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Thirteen</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>A family reunion becomes farewell.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Lothal</p><p><br/>
</p><p>Melch dropped out of the ceiling and the Stormtroopers turned from the door. He shot one of them dead.<br/>
<br/>
“Blast him,” the Stormtrooper captain ordered. His men ran off in pursuit.<br/>
<br/>
Zeb hit the door panel and pounded the Stormtrooper captain out cold.<br/>
<br/>
“Ha ha. Works every time,” Zeb could see the wisdom in using a person as bait.<br/>
<br/>
Gregor thought that was cool.<br/>
<br/>
“Of course it worked my friends. Just look at Melch. He’s positively magnetic,” Hondo, as usual was making a spectacle of himself. Gregor liked Hondo less now that they weren’t on drugs together.<br/>
<br/>
“I’m sure you’ve got a special relationship, Hondo, but we’re kind of on a mission here. We’ve got to get that shield up over the city.” General Syndulla ordered.<br/>
<br/>
“Rex, Hondo and Ketsu, you take the north tower,” Sabine stood by as Hera’s captain, “Zeb, Kallus, Gregor, you take the south, I’ll talk you through it from here.”<br/>
<br/>
Sabine had only ordered the teams only by coincidence. According only to how they were standing.<br/>
<br/>
Rex would never have humiliated Gregor by objecting to the order or trying to convince Sabine to make a switch. Rex made eye contact with Alexsandr in askance. ‘Care for my brother for me,’ he wanted to convey.<br/>
<br/>
Alexsandr looked back like he understood.<br/>
<br/>
Zeb faced the group, “Let’s go, Rebels!”<br/>
<br/>
–<br/>
<br/>
Rex’s team stormed in through the door to the North Tower and Rex shot the Imperial at the console dead in the helmet. He was certainly dead.<br/>
<br/>
Rex and Hondo fired at other technicians who began blasting at them from the platform above.<br/>
<br/>
Ketsu raised the comlink and called Sabine, “Base, this is Team A, we’re in.”<br/>
<br/>
“Copy that, Team A,” Sabine’s voice said calmly. It seemed macabre in all the chaos they were experiencing. “What’s it look like down there?” Sabine asked.<br/>
<br/>
Team A dodged fire and took cover behind the main console on the platform, “Oh, it’s just great” Ketsu said sarcastically, “Really wish you were here.”<br/>
<br/>
The noghri fellow walked in with two Death Troopers through a door above them across the room. Fire was now coming from two directions.<br/>
<br/>
Rex commed to Hera, “Our problems are multiplying. We could use some help down here,” Rex refused to say ‘reinforcements’, but he thought people over-used it. Saying ‘help’ was faster.<br/>
<br/>
Hera switched channels, “Team B, where are you.”<br/>
<br/>
Gregor, Kallus and Zeb were taking heavy fire. To Gregor, it felt like nothing new. He didn’t once miss.<br/>
<br/>
Zeb answered, breathing heavily, “Were heading towards sector GL-44. But you know that plan we had to trap all these Stormtroopers in the dome? It just occurred to me, we’re trapped with all these Stormtroopers in this dome!”<br/>
<br/>
Gregor shot one successfully with his backhand.<br/>
<br/>
“We got it, Ryder, close blast door 58-58,” Sabine directed.<br/>
<br/>
The door closed and Team B looked at each other.<br/>
<br/>
“You have a clear path to the shield generator now,” Hera told them over the comlink.<br/>
<br/>
They opened the door and ran in through the South Tower door, the shield control room full of blaster bolts.<br/>
<br/>
Not more than a few seconds had passed before Sabine was on the comlink at Rex, “Rex, we need those towers back online now!”<br/>
<br/>
Rex shifted to get a better view. “I can’t get to the control panel, you’ve got to extend the bridges,” he refused to shout, despite the din.<br/>
<br/>
Sabine’s voice returned after a moment, “Ugh, Chopper’s been fried. The circuit was protected.”<br/>
<br/>
“Great. Now what?” Rex didn’t have time to look and see where Gregor was. It bothered him, but he just couldn’t in the blaster fire. He just had to trust Gregor’s training.<br/>
<br/>
“Find an override panel. You should be able to do it manually from there,” Sabine told him on the comlink.<br/>
<br/>
The blaster fire was raining. Several shots landed near Rex. “Any ideas?” he asked Ketsu.<br/>
<br/>
“Yeah. But I’m gonna stay anyway,” Ketsu deadpanned. But she had already laid down her blaster for a wrench.<br/>
<br/>
Captain Rex stood up and fired with one hand. As simple as pointing at the sources of his annoyance.<br/>
<br/>
--<br/>
<br/>
Hondo was cowering behind a console, while Rex had to provide all the cover fire.<br/>
<br/>
Ketsu tried to get the override ridden.  She pressed a few buttons, “Got it.”<br/>
<br/>
The bridge extended.<br/>
<br/>
Ketsu picked up her gun right away to help Rex again.<br/>
<br/>
Suddenly Melch came in the door behind them being chased by a Stormtrooper.<br/>
<br/>
Rex shot the guy in the chest. Direct hit.<br/>
<br/>
Melch kept moving and ran the bridge.<br/>
<br/>
“Look at him go!” Hondo shouted. Hondo hadn’t been helping at all. But at least he wasn’t getting in the way.<br/>
<br/>
Melch was almost immediately shot in the shoulder.<br/>
<br/>
“NO!” Hondo yelled. He ran at Melch. Melch fell on his back, seemingly a goner.<br/>
<br/>
Hondo looked angry and finally shot one Stormtrooper.<br/>
<br/>
He threw away his blaster, sat down, as bolts flew past. He gathered Melch to some cover and knelt over him, “Melch, what were you thinking? You’re not a hero! You’re a pirate like me!” Always making it about him.<br/>
<br/>
On the platform above with Team B, Gregor was holding his own. He tended to favor action over caution, “Even with that bridge extended, there’s just too many of them!” Gregor shouted to Zeb. “We’re gonna have to do something drastic!”<br/>
<br/>
Zeb was the biggest and the strongest, so he figured the job fell to him. “Alright,” Zeb shouted, “I’ll do it!” He threw away his blaster and ran down the bridge.<br/>
<br/>
“Zeb,” Alexsandr shouted, “Don’t!”<br/>
<br/>
Zeb made it across the generator room in two jumps of his impossibly strong body tackling the noghri at full speed into the reactor pit.<br/>
<br/>
Gregor raised an eyebrow, “He’s crazy!”<br/>
<br/>
Alexsandr was horrified. “Well, it was your idea!”<br/>
<br/>
Gregor could honestly not remember what he was talking about.<br/>
<br/>
Kallus shouted, “Come on!”<br/>
<br/>
He and Gregor rushed the bridge, clearing reactor techs all the way and reaching the main controls. The reactor techs were all on the ground.<br/>
<br/>
They both set to work pushing buttons. Alexsandr knew what he was doing. Gregor wasn’t sure. But he didn’t want to stand around looking useless, so he looked at a panel, hoping for some flash of recognition.<br/>
<br/>
Suddenly a blast sounded.<br/>
<br/>
Gregor felt his chest hurt. A slow scalding burn, like he was being cooked inside out. The pain was enough to enrage him.<br/>
<br/>
“Gregor!” Rex shouted, helpless on the platform below.<br/>
<br/>
Gregor picked up the offending reactor tech and threw him off the platform, just like he’d seen the loth-wolf do.<br/>
<br/>
The guy screamed as he fell.<br/>
<br/>
Kallus went over to assist, but just saw the man land with a crunch.<br/>
<br/>
Gregor wobbled and clutched his chest.<br/>
<br/>
Kallus caught him and eased him down, his face alarmed.<br/>
<br/>
Gregor smacked him away as hard as he could, “Get that shield up!” Biggus Dickus would be damned if he was going to go out in a fashion unbefitting.<br/>
<br/>
--<br/>
<br/>
“Guys, now or never,” Sabine’s voice came over the com.<br/>
<br/>
Ketsu pulled the switch up. “Now!”<br/>
<br/>
“Zeb!” Kallus shouted from the console.<br/>
<br/>
Zeb climbed up out of the pit, “Don’t wait on me!”<br/>
<br/>
Alexsandr’s heart swelled. He knew he didn’t have to. Zeb jumping abilities had been part of their weird wonderful love story. Zeb would be fine. It just made sense.<br/>
<br/>
The console read full power, Kallus hit the button.<br/>
<br/>
Zeb jumped out onto a platform for safety.<br/>
<br/>
The noghri’s comlink chirped, “Rukh, Rukh, what’s your status?” Thrawn’s voice asked.<br/>
<br/>
Gregor muttered up to Kallus from where he was lying still on the floor, “Having balls, that was his stay-tus.”<br/>
<br/>
Zeb picked the comlink up, “Sorry, you’ll have to call back, he’s busy at the moment….uh, yeah, um...never mind about calling back.” The noghri was cooked in the generator.<br/>
<br/>
Rex knew he’d remember the smell of that flesh for years to come.<br/>
<br/>
“Once again, I have let my crew down,” Hondo made a spectacle of himself. Head in hands, while Melch lay there. “If only I could get Melch back. I would tell him...”<br/>
<br/>
Melch sat up and squealed, smiling. He went in for a hug.<br/>
<br/>
“That he is fortunate to be in my service because only that keeps him alive, ha!” Hondo crossed his arms and pretended he was better than that.<br/>
<br/>
Watching it buoyed Rex’s hopes. He ran to Gregor, now that the blasters had silenced.<br/>
<br/>
Alexsandr was beside him, lowering Gregor’s head to the floor.<br/>
<br/>
Suddenly, Rex’s ears grew hot and he felt dizzy. Rex had a flash of terrible memory. Gregor was shot in the same place as Fives.<br/>
<br/>
Alexsandr got out of the way and Rex knelt beside his brother. Gregor was shot through the chest, singeing his stupid Power Sliders tank top. It was a direct shot at close range. Almost no armor would have been able to stop it.<br/>
<br/>
Rex’s brothers’ share of the loss had been disproportionate. Like always, it seemed. The entire team had lived through it, save one.<br/>
<br/>
Gregor couldn’t make the burning stop. He’d been shot before, but this was different. He didn’t know why it was getting so dark in there. Why it smelled like gamey cooked meat.<br/>
<br/>
Rex touched Gregor’s shoulder and held his hand.<br/>
<br/>
“It was an honor to serve with you, Rex,” Gregor managed some trite drivel, just for Rex’s sake. It was hard to breathe, though.<br/>
<br/>
Rex took Gregor’s hand in both of his.<br/>
<br/>
Gregor didn’t want Rex to be so sad. The entire time Gregor had known him, that’s how he remembered seeing Rex most of the time.<br/>
<br/>
So Gregor told him more of what he thought Rex needed to hear, “It was an honor, to fight with you for something that we chose to believe in.” No regrets.<br/>
<br/>
Rex’s hand returned to Gregor’s shoulder. He realized he was just moving his hand because he didn’t know what else to do.<br/>
<br/>
Rex sighed.<br/>
<br/>
Rex’s eyes grew wet. “We did it Gregor.” Gregor’s hand slipped from his a little. Rex gripped it tight for a moment, then placed Gregor’s hand on his dead chest. “We did it.”<br/>
<br/>
Rex chose to believe it. He needed to believe it. They’d done...something.<br/>
<br/>
Then, like so many times in his life that it was second nature, Rex made himself get up, take up his weapons, and get back to the fight, being forced by circumstance to leave a brother’s remains behind.</p><p><br/>
</p><p> </p><p>–<br/>
<br/>
“What’s happening?” Vizago had just sighted them.<br/>
<br/>
Wolffe looked out the viewports to what seemed to be some type of realspace creature. Enormous tetrapodia, locomoting through the air. Like a whale that flew in the sky. Wolffe found himself wondering if they dove down to the surface of water to breathe. He hoped Gregor would see them.<br/>
<br/>
“So, would you believe me if I told you this was Ezra’s plan,” Mart was so cheery, Wolffe found it a little jarring.<br/>
<br/>
It was real. Wolffe could barely contain his joy at the surprise. Like laughter after a fright. He felt like some magical creature out of his childhood holo-vid fantasies had just appeared in the sky like he always daydreamed they would.<br/>
<br/>
“No, but this has Bridger written all over it,” Wolffe found himself cheering for the Jedi, once again.<br/>
<br/>
“That’s why it’s going to work,” Vizago was evidently also a fan. He’d probably grown up during the war, when the good guys were semi-divine.<br/>
<br/>
Wolffe relaxed, “You fly, kid, I’ll man the turret.” The gun turret had the best view. For the second time in his life, Wolffe watched three star cruisers destroyed in a matter of minutes. He hadn’t seen something that awe inspiring and terrifying since the Abregado disaster when he was ten. As Wolffe watched the animals wreck all of the technological terrors, he couldn’t help but feel opposite to how Abregado had made him feel. </p><p><br/>
</p><p>--<br/>
<br/>
Ezra was responding over the comlink at last, “Hera, I have to see this through to the end.”<br/>
<br/>
Sabine was at least being level headed, “Ezra, please, get out of there!”<br/>
<br/>
Rex and his company rushed to the bridge.<br/>
<br/>
“I can’t do that!” Ezra’s voice said.<br/>
<br/>
Rex went up the stairs to stand with Hera.<br/>
<br/>
Ezra signed off, “It’s up to all of you now. And remember, the Force will be with you, always.”<br/>
<br/>
Rex was about to turn to Gregor to say, “And also with you.” Then all of a sudden he remembered.<br/>
<br/>
The ships and the realspace creatures jumped into the sky and vanished.<br/>
<br/>
Everyone on the bridge of the Imperial dome stood in stunned silence, staring out the viewport at the empty swirls of smog. Everyone’s eyes were wide.<br/>
<br/>
“Um...was that the plan?” Wolffe’s voice asked over the comlink. “Because, we’re all clear up here. There are no Imperial ships left.” He’d lived again.<br/>
<br/>
“This is our chance,” Sabine got the mission back on track, she turned and looked at the others, “You heard Ezra, let’s finish this! Chopper, prime the thrusters for launch. We’re gonna blow this place.”<br/>
<br/>
Rex expected Gregor to say ‘thirteen’. 'That's what she said.' Then he remembered. Suddenly hated the number thirteen. It made him realize that the dome, with Gregor’s body on it, would be blown to pieces.<br/>
<br/>
“Mart, we need immediate pickup,” Hera commed to the Ghost.<br/>
<br/>
“Copy that, General,” Mart answered.<br/>
<br/>
Chopper plugged in. The dome lurched. Then began slowly to ascend.<br/>
<br/>
Stormtroopers short circuited the door open and rushed in. Fire was exchanged. But in all the smoke and those blinding helmets, the enemy didn’t stand a chance.<br/>
<br/>
Sabine blew a few of them up with a detonator. Mandalorians approached problem solving by favoring expeditiousness.<br/>
<br/>
Everyone fell back towards the viewport.<br/>
<br/>
Chopper threw Sabine the lightsaber. She cut the transparisteel of the port and kicked it out, leading the escape. Hondo was right behind her, of course. One by one, they all climbed out while Rex and Zeb provided rear cover, the last ones out.<br/>
<br/>
They hid for some cover on the roof, waiting for their rescue. The Ghost came sweeping in from above. Wolffe provided cover fire, purposefully missing as the low flying ship knocked the enemy over. The thought made Wolffe happy, as he counted all the guys there he didn’t kill.<br/>
<br/>
Mart brought it around for another pass opened the ramp and the team all ran in.<br/>
<br/>
Zeb shot a Stormtrooper on his way out for good measure.<br/>
<br/>
They flew away from the dome as it drifted away.<br/>
<br/>
Rex looked out the window of the bridge of the Ghost at the dome, “It’s gaining altitude over the sea.” Finally, the trash could be disposed of safely, he thought.<br/>
<br/>
“It’s all you Sabine,” Hera said. She had taken her place at the controls.<br/>
<br/>
Sabine sighed, “For Kanan and Ezra.”<br/>
<br/>
Rex started feeling itchy. Gregor’s body was still on that thing. She didn’t say anything about him. She barely knew him, he guessed. He and Wolffe would honor Gregor properly later. Rex was sure Hera wouldn’t forget. Still, he couldn’t make himself reserve the thoughts for later, they kept splashing up like acid in a heartburned throat.<br/>
<br/>
Sabine hit her detonator button on her wrist guard.<br/>
<br/>
“Rex, bring up every star chart along Ezra’s last known trajectory,” Hera ordered.<br/>
<br/>
Rex did as he was told.<br/>
<br/>
But Chopper stopped them and played a recording instead.<br/>
<br/>
“If you’re watching this recording then I owe you an explanation,” the ever prepared, seemingly clairvoyant Jedi had led until the end, Rex congratulated himself. He’d picked a winner. “There were several paths in front of me. While this wasn’t the one I wanted to take,” hologram Ezra’s hands behind him like a child saying he was sorry, “it’s what I had to do. That’s something Kanan taught me.” He rubbed his hair, “I’m going to miss you all.”<br/>
<br/>
Rex felt nice to be included.<br/>
<br/>
Then Ezra listed those closest to him only.<br/>
<br/>
“Zeb, you can have the top bunk back. For now,” Ezra told a joke. Zeb and Kallus usually shared the floor those days. “Hera, I uh, left a meiloorun in your cabin. I hope it’s still your favorite. Sabine, don’t forget,”<br/>
<br/>
“Right,” she whispered.<br/>
<br/>
“I’m counting on you.”<br/>
<br/>
“You’re counting on me,” she said at the same time. “For what?”<br/>
<br/>
Ezra’s hologram went on, “I couldn’t have wished for a better family. I can’t wait to come home.”<br/>
<br/>
Rex’s chest hurt so much he thought his breastbone would crack from pressure. Family. What had he done? Rex crossed his arms to stop the hurt, telling himself to focus on the mission. “Not to kill the moment, but the Empire is not gonna let us just keep this planet. We need to prepare for how we’re going to fight back,” yes, Rex thought. That was how it had to be.<br/>
<br/>
Kallus added, with just a whisper of sarcasm, “Perhaps the Rebel alliance will see our victory and finally send support.” Almost nobody but Rex detected the vaguest hint of his light blasphemy.<br/>
<br/>
Zeb was more forthright, “We took Lothal without them, we can keep it without them.”<br/>
<br/>
Rex decided that would be okay. He could stay. It would be a life he could convince Wolffe to accept. Lots of work, but human contact. Purpose. A fight they could believe in. They could even make a home. Anywhere could be home with family.<br/>
<br/>
“Zeb, you may be right,” Hera looked out the viewport at the sound of cheers. “Listen,” They took a victory lap around the capital<br/>
<br/>
“Looks like the people are with you, General Syndulla,” Kallus smiled at her.<br/>
<br/>
Rex had to admit, it was helpful to see her happy. It almost seemed...worth it.<br/>
<br/>
“If the Empire wants a fight, we’ll be ready for them,” Hera declared. </p><p>–</p><p>Wolffe was sitting at his gun, waiting for someone to come and tell him there was nothing else to shoot at. He cracked his neck a little and wondered how many thousands of people were in that dome when it blew up. How much oil had spilled. How many perfectly usable ships had been vaporized. How much was lost in food and medical supplies. How many fish had been killed.<br/>
<br/>
The ship landed. So Wolffe guessed that was it. He’d lived. Again. He got up, he stretched a little. He walked to the cargo hold, then the ramp. They seemed to have landed in the city to regroup. All around him, everyone was celebrating. The streets were alive with a party atmosphere, despite the fires and blaster burns everywhere.<br/>
<br/>
Wolffe scanned the crowd for the familiar jang faces and found Rex, still in his black and white Stormtrooper armor, speaking closely with Hera. Wolffe smiled and ran over to him and hugged him, but Rex’s body stiffened and was strangely cold.<br/>
<br/>
Wolffe backed out and put his hands on Rex’s silly looking pauldrons. “We did it brother! We lived through another one!” he was laughing from the euphoria. He hugged Rex again. This time, Rex hugged back….but for too long. And too tightly. Suddenly, Wolffe knew something was wrong.<br/>
<br/>
He backed away and Rex didn’t look him in the eyes.<br/>
<br/>
“Where’s Gregor?” Wolffe asked casually at first. The momentary silence that followed told Wolffe everything. But he said it anyway. “Rex,” he asked slowly, “Where’s Gregor? I see most everyone else here,” Wolffe looked at the Ghost team standing around patting each other on their backs.<br/>
<br/>
Rex closed his eyes and bowed his head reverently, “His battle is over now.”<br/>
<br/>
Suddenly Rex was awakened from his peace by a punch to the nose. He was so overcome with shock, he’d been knocked on his ass. He looked up as his nose flooded blood all over his chest, dripping onto his beard and armor. It was flowing like a drain at a slaughterhouse.<br/>
<br/>
Hera ran to Rex’s side and helped him up. She growled at Wolffe as she got in between them, “What are you doing?”<br/>
<br/>
Wolffe held up his hands in a gesture of surrender. His face looked like it was draining of color. The tone turned to gray. Tears collected in the one eye that could still shed them. “I’m out, Rex. I’m done. I’ve had enough.” He took a few steps backwards. “I’m not even sorry about that girl.”<br/>
<br/>
Rex never took his eyes off Wolffe. He took a few steps forward. “What are you talking about?”<br/>
<br/>
Wolffe walked on to the Ghost.<br/>
<br/>
Rex pursued him, “What are you talking about?”<br/>
<br/>
Wolffe didn’t like the terrain, being in Kanan’s room, where they had all packed up their things on Seelos. The space was too close in there and Wolffe didn’t think he stood a chance.<br/>
<br/>
So he stalled the fight. He didn’t respond. He simply gathered his things, his hands trembling the whole time. He didn’t have much left, just a messenger bag and a bed roll. His guitar, which had a pack that he could wear on his back. He stepped back out onto the ramp and into the sun. People around were happy. The battle was won. No one was watching. What were the tiny little problems of two insignificant half men?<br/>
<br/>
Wolffe walked with purpose. He was looking for anyone with a ship that wanted to get off world fast. Anywhere, anywhere with a public shuttle station.<br/>
<br/>
Rex trotted to catch up in the open town market. “What girl?”<br/>
<br/>
People were starting to notice Rex’s armor.<br/>
<br/>
Wolffe thought he might be able to make a run for it if he fought dirty and kicked Rex in the codpiece.<br/>
<br/>
Wolffe didn’t break stride. He sighed and admitted it finally, “Alis.”<br/>
<br/>
“What?” Rex stopped dead.<br/>
<br/>
People were pointing.<br/>
<br/>
Wolffe considered keeping going, but he realized that was a shitty way to go. So he stopped and half turned. “She came to Seelos looking for you. Practically everyone on her world was killed, she had nowhere else to go. She was with us for months, Rex. But you never left me any way to find you. The Imperials came. I told her to move on because it wasn’t safe there. And I just know nowhere is safe with you.”<br/>
<br/>
“How could you do that to me again?” Rex’s bloody face looked horrific, contorted with pain.<br/>
<br/>
People were starting to whisper, ‘Stormtrooper.’<br/>
<br/>
“Because contrary to your apparent assumption, I have free will. Whether or not I choose to exercise it doesn’t mean it went away. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I don’t know when shit will hit the fan, but I want to be far away by then.” Wolffe didn’t care if he told Rex that Cody was probably coming to find him. Let it be a surprise.  He turned and began to walk away.<br/>
<br/>
The crowd was coming closer, growing emboldened.<br/>
<br/>
Rex tried to run after Wolffe, “Where will you go? What will you do?”<br/>
<br/>
“I don’t know,” Wolffe said. It wasn’t convincing.<br/>
<br/>
Wolffe waded back into the fray, past the streets, past the people.<br/>
<br/>
Rex began to shed the armor, “No...I’m not...it’s not...” it got so dangerous, Rex had to make a run for it back to the Ghost and the safety of his friends.<br/>
<br/>
He was back into his field gear as soon as he could gather his belongings. He was glad to be out of that garbage armor at last. It took forever to get the blood out of his facial hair.<br/>
<br/>
–<br/>
<br/>
Rex sat for a long time feeling that horrible guilt. Rex could have had both Wolffe and Alis beside him now. If only he’d come sooner. If only he’d sent a transmission once in a while. If only Sith Lords weren’t after him. If only he wasn’t so broke. If only he wasn’t so desperate. If only, if only, if only.<br/>
<br/>
All around him, people were celebrating and hugging. He hadn’t felt so alone in years. </p><p> –<br/>
In Hyperspace</p><p><br/>
</p><p>Wolffe hadn’t bathed or shaved in days. He looked absolutely scary. To say nothing of how he smelled. It kept people from wanting to come too near. He didn’t look like he had anything anybody wanted.<br/>
<br/>
Wolffe stood up and stretched a little, then rolled up his meager belongings. To pass the time, he took out Gregor’s sketch book from his pack. He used the next blank page to draw Gregor riding one of the pergills. His stuff wasn’t as good as Gregor’s.<br/>
<br/>
The general call for deboarding came over the com system. “Final Destination. Coruscant Central Spaceport.”<br/>
<br/>
Wolffe put the things back in his messenger bag, and drew it over his shoulder. His guitar was on his back.<br/>
<br/>
He was illegal. He was AWOL. He looked like a vagrant. He carried undeclared cash. Heart full of hope, certain of rejection.<br/>
<br/>
He whispered under his breath, “There’s no place like home.”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. One</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>A visit to Iego doesn't go as planned.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Abrion Sector<br/>
<br/>
“The what?” Cody asked. “I thought an organized Rebellion was a myth. How drunk was Rau when he said this?”<br/>
<br/>
“I don’t know, his drinking bowl was pretty big,” Goran put in.<br/>
<br/>
“So, Rau implied that he was working with Rex and in some kind of coordination with the Rebellion? Hm. Mandalore has got to be a gold mine for weapons sales right now,” Cody looked at Niki.<br/>
<br/>
Niki’s voice was still off, “Cody will you karking keep focus, Rau doesn’t have Alis. So she’s not in that Mandalorian shit show. I don’t want to go within three parsecs of that place,” Niki was finding it difficult to endure the little sausage fest that was the journey back to Rishi from Seelos.<br/>
<br/>
“You’re the one always interested in the business opportunities,” Cody dared to tease her a little, since he felt more comfortable in a group. “And Rau thought Rex was alive?”<br/>
<br/>
Victory reported, “He didn’t seem surprised to be talking to him, but he didn’t seem to have been in contact for some time.”<br/>
<br/>
“Well, Seelos was a dead end. They seemed to think Rex was dead, no one had seen him for years,” Cody struggled not to sound hopeful, though the feeling was there no matter how much he tried to swallow it.<br/>
<br/>
Niner tried to be useful, “But if Alis was the girl Mahti mentioned, she was there, at least for a little while.”<br/>
<br/>
Cody shrugged, “We’ll have to wait until something else crops up.”<br/>
<br/>
“And what do we do about him?” Niner pointed down towards the planet. Even though it was no longer below them.<br/>
<br/>
“He doesn’t seem to want to be friends.” Cody decided.<br/>
<br/>
“So Organa’s Rebellion on one side, Vader on the other.” Niki said, sarcastically, although what she said was accurate.<br/>
<br/>
“The only side that wins is the Empire. As usual.” Victory said in fake cheerfulness.<br/>
<br/>
“That seems to be it. I can’t side with Organa, so Vader it is.” Cody swerved strangely. “I won’t work as a servant, it’s got to be mercenary alliance.”<br/>
<br/>
“How are you gonna negotiate it? We were lucky to have survived that,” Niner reminded.<br/>
<br/>
“But we did.” Niki scratched out.<br/>
<br/>
Cody caught on right away what she meant, “We just need to know what to plan for. Think differently. Things he won’t expect. Things he can’t anticipate.”<br/>
<br/>
“You’re well!” Niner exclaimed, delighted.<br/>
<br/>
“I’m fine,” Niki’s voice was huskier, but she was able to speak softly.<br/>
<br/>
“You saved us,” Cody beamed at her.<br/>
<br/>
“Oh relax with the sentimental drivel. I need you to figure out how we can speak to this thing without us dying,” Niki kept on track with the total focus of a hungry animal.<br/>
<br/>
“It’s kind of like having to fight a tall guy, his reach is further, hard to get close in. But...even that can be overcome with deliberate strategy,” Cody rubbed his forehead. His mind flooded with ideas. Cody had resources at his disposal that other armies didn’t have. Like a crop of veterans with actual experience in combat with Force wielders. Niki sat back and let him go to work.<br/>
<br/>
Most clones had been in love with Niki since she appeared in their environment all those years ago. She had learned on the clone population how to commodify herself to the fullest, until she had become the standard dream girl of an entire populace. Clones were mostly not encouraged to picture themselves having relations with other creatures, their education had officially been abstinence only. Their owners had made it illegal. They were told over and over that despite what they felt like, they were not real men.<br/>
<br/>
Yet, there was Niki, reminding them every day how it felt to be alive. It was like being flown to another place, viscera first. Self immolation might have been preferable to the feeling she inspired saying a brother’s name at the moment of climax.<br/>
<br/>
After her ordeal in the Imperial prison system, Niki had to demand her solitude on Rishi.<br/>
<br/>
Just because someone makes you want to be with them, doesn’t mean they necessarily did anything active. She simply was and the intensity of her effect on people made people mistake it for love. She still enjoyed using that presence, performing now and again, but mostly, she required that people keep their distance.<br/>
<br/>
Cody spent more of his lifetime than he wanted to admit just trying to convince Niki that he was not a total worthless failure. Her begrudging belief in him was something he found extremely inspiring.  </p><p>Seelos</p><p>Stormtroopers swarmed the mission ruins doing a search of the site. Lord Vader had already been retrieved and returned to a bacta tank on ship.</p><p>One Stormtrooper examined some dirt pushed aside on the ground. Like where a person had been thrown. He bent down and picked up a small vial of what looked to be an unfamiliar type of cartridge for an injection pen. He held it up so his captain could see, "Look sir..."</p><p>Rishi<br/>
<br/>
They hadn’t had a public ceremony to celebrate the end of emergency laws or anything, information got around fast.<br/>
<br/>
The queen did deliver a speech to her people, standing with all members of her large council. She reported about what had been done. The injured were healing. The dead would be remembered. A permanent memorial would be placed at the site. The perpetrator had been swiftly apprehended. He confessed to the crime and had acted alone. As the official face of government within the colony, the queen conveyed a calm she didn’t feel. As she returned to the day to day joys of life, they felt they could too. Children played again. Couples strolled in the park. And over a million Jango Fett clones and their families went back to living their lives.<br/>
<br/>
The recording of Fiver’s odd confession was released publicly, including his strange ravings about Darth Vader.<br/>
<br/>
It was easy for the clone populace to see that their brother was under a mental sickness of one form or another. Those more inclined towards religious explanations saw it as a kind of evil spell. The more secularist tended to accept the scientific explanation, conditioning/mind-control. Or just ordinary mental illness.<br/>
<br/>
Everyone assured themselves, that it meant that the puppet masters couldn’t get to them there except by deceit. Some even saw it as part of an ongoing battle their people were fighting, good against evil.<br/>
<br/>
In any case, the offending brother had become dangerously deluded and committed murder. The ending had been satisfying. The problem had been rooted out before things had gone out of control.<br/>
<br/>
The story brought them relief somehow from the dread of not knowing what might happen next. The guilty party had been dealt with. The deviant was a relative outsider to whom barely anyone had personal attachments, so they could comfort themselves that discord was something that belonged only to THOSE people.<br/>
<br/>
Cody did tell the story multiple times at the next communal dinner at his house. It was a great story. The queen’s own son Atin had been tricked. The audacity of that villain! But their son realized the error and was able to lead the queen, his mother, to her attempted murderer. It was the stuff of fairy tales.<br/>
<br/>
That was more or less how it had played out in the public eye. Sotna didn’t want any credit, she was trying to keep a low profile. Since she was now officially working in intelligence. Intelligence gathering, like magic, worked best when people didn’t know your tactics.<br/>
<br/>
The way the story went made people feel powerful and safe. And right.<br/>
<br/>
Peace of mind was precious.<br/>
<br/>
Queen Lina was always against executions if they could be avoided. She doubted she’d be able to kill a sentient being, herself. But as the head of state and keeper of the laws her people had voted into existence, she was required to order death from time to time. Cody did not want to murder his brother, it went against clones’ earliest familial code, that brothers’ lives were precious and worth protecting. They had learned the hard way that if they didn’t care about themselves, no one else would. But he was able to follow orders like a good soldier. Therefore, they had developed a type of ceremonial public protocol. There were times that a brother had done something that merited execution under the law code they’d all agreed to and pledged to live by. This code was taught to the young. It was discussed and clarified as specific cases arose, revised only after group consensus. Records were kept so that people were held to account for things they said. Crimes of execution included murder, rape, and treason. The protocol was beheading, since that was considered just a smidge more humane than feeding people to the moon eels alive.<br/>
<br/>
When disposing of non clones and enemy outsiders, it didn’t require ceremony of execution, they were just tossed off the platform.<br/>
<br/>
Rishi moon was becoming quite the little project. The eels ate. They shat. Guano collected and fed to the trees as Rishi moon was gradually terraformed. The stolen asteroid base was under maintenance and would open soon. With the old Republic dish, their broadcasting strength was soon to be one of the best in the sector. Their listening power was going to rise astronomically.<br/>
<br/>
CC-2224, aka Cody, Commander, was one of the greatest scholars of history in all the galaxy. He knew what things worked. He knew how to build a state. He had always had a plan. What is a plan but a dream of what could be? He dreamed of a day when his father’s descendants would take Kamino.<br/>
<br/>
--<br/>
<br/>
The queen’s close council was made up of their household and best friends. People they felt safe being themselves around. They all sat around the gazebo in the garden. Children were running and playing, catching fireflies and admiring the moon. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary.<br/>
<br/>
“Look, we don’t know how reliable a witness Fiver was, but his mind showed all the symptoms of Force interference. Like he got too close to radiation,” Cody explained. “I don’t know for sure if this was opportunistic, like he was damaged and he just got triggered when he arrived here. An extreme case of PTSD or something.” It had been known to happen. “Or...well, we have to entertain the notion that he was intentionally weaponized. If so, by whom?”<br/>
<br/>
Blue scratched his bald head, “So...not Vader? I thought he was clear.”<br/>
<br/>
The queen could see, “Believe in the religion or not, we have all seen what powers the Sith can employ over minds. Lies are all they have. Maybe it’s a trick. Someone wants us to fight Vader so that he has a reason to flatten us.”<br/>
<br/>
“Or, he could have been raving to be able to claim an insanity defense or some other shit,” Niki assumed the worst of everybody. She had spent most of her life in a type of sales job, so she knew people would say anything to get what they wanted. And how conscious people really were of their lies. She could always tell that by looking people in the eyes.<br/>
<br/>
“Why now? Whose priorities are these?” Sotna got right to the point, “Someone IS trying to cause discord here in the most efficient way possible, by attacking our leadership. It means they know who we are. They know where we are. They know we’re a threat to them. They figure, take out the head, we will be leaderless and confused.”<br/>
<br/>
Blue looked offended, “We’ve planned for all that, though. Everyone knows the chain of command. We wouldn’t lose a step.” He had every confidence in the state as they’d constructed it.<br/>
<br/>
Cody was actually proud of it, too. But he couldn’t be anything other than what he was. A sour old realist.<br/>
<br/>
“I can say what I know of Sith warfare. The rule of two forces the pair, the master and apprentice, into a constant competition as to who can kill the other first. It’s hard, because they get so close they can feel each other’s hate and anticipate each other. They’re each constantly trying to figure out what the other one knows. So it is in keeping with Sith customs that Vader may be looking to get a leg up and he might be open to working together secretly. If Fiver’s mushy intelligence checks out, about Vader wanting to rule everything, we might be able to at least reach out. Convince him that we'd prefer him to Sheev. I’m sure someone can negotiate a mutually beneficial understanding. But if Vader’s not serious about breaking with Emperor, we will be killed. If he decides he can kill the Emperor without us, we will be killed. If he decides he's better off with the Emperor and to back out of the deal at any time, we will be killed. If my friend the Emperor catches wise and decides to discipline us, we will be killed. These forces are so much bigger than us.”<br/>
<br/>
“Cody, is there a karking scenario where we are not all killed?” Lina asked, deliberately drank a cup of warm tea, despite wanting to spit.<br/>
<br/>
“Doing nothing could get us all killed,” Blue added ‘helpfully’. Blue knew clone luck. Truthfully, he hadn’t thought they’d last as long as they did. He had trees in his garden taller than him. And eopies that had grandchildren.<br/>
<br/>
“If we can make a deal with him. Or at least sell him out to Sheev before he decides to do it to us…” Shizla wondered. Pirate code was very similar to Sith rule in most respects.<br/>
<br/>
“The whole thing just feels so tainted,” Lina had been raised in the Force religion in the shadow of the Jedi Temple itself. She believed. And her understanding of the Force, though she had no sensitivity to it herself, was completely different than what Fiver had spouted. Power and revenge were alien desires to her. She lamented that so many people, her mother included, had let their faith be about fear and guilt and shame. And anger. And abuse. And threats of divine punishment. To her, people like Vader and the Emperor were just peddling fundamentalism like any other religion had. People who understood faith as chains of loyalty.<br/>
<br/>
For Lina, she said, it had always been about what brought peace to her heart.<br/>
<br/>
Cody spoke what he knew were important words to her, “If Kenobi were alive, he would have would have told us to do what must be done.”<br/>
<br/>
Only a handful of people, mostly in that gazebo, knew who had helped them liberate the Rothana labor colony. The secret colony, to which the Empire had sent immature clones from the Kamino factory to be used as lab animals in weapons testing. Over a million brothers had been saved, and Cody was in command, with a Jedi military adviser at his side. Among the Rothana clones, the Jedi always wore a mask. They saw his powers, they were sure he was a Jedi. Most everybody just assumed he was Skywalker, since his ‘Skywalker Lives’ graffiti took credit. Though some claimed him to be a ghost or an apparition, or an impersonator. A small, but growing number of them suspected the help might have come as a representative from a secret underground Jedi order sent to protect them, or that he was some kind of Jedi prophet that was there to anoint Cody as the supernaturally chosen leader of his people. Thus, Cody’s had emerged as a hopeful story that would absolve all of his people of their burdensome guilt.<br/>
<br/>
When Cody had found himself face to face with Kenobi, he realized he personally couldn’t be a Jedi killer. He was exonerated of one of the most significant crimes in history. But where did that leave his brothers? They HAD killed Jedi. They didn’t have the convenient Jedi ex machina to save them. Cody deliberately decided that the Jedi’s identity could not be known, so left the secret to a few. They spread the other rumors. He charged them to keep Kenobi’s whereabouts to death. He refused to say anything more about it himself.<br/>
<br/>
Cody lectured, “Force tactics cannot be acquired, but as the Mandalorians knew, they can be compensated against. However, as good as our security precautions can be, maybe it would be helpful to send the right representation,” Cody said, reluctantly. “Maybe you should try a contact alor beh ner ka’rta. He doesn’t know you. He would never expect you,” Cody rubbed the back of his wife’s neck, “But since he probably was the one who just tried to kill you, maybe not that.”<br/>
<br/>
Lina had forgiven Cody the murder of Kenobi before he’d turned up. She had done so on honest grounds. She knew about the control chips that had forced the clones to regard Order 66, so as far as she was concerned, no clone was ever guilty. Cody had left well enough alone. Brothers knew they had her trust.<br/>
<br/>
Lina had known Kenobi personally and in her mind, he was one of the good ones. She was always sure he would have agreed with her how unfair it was that mind control had been used, how unjust the trickery had been.<br/>
<br/>
It had been new to Cody to hear it that way. Cody had always been so ashamed of himself, it had never occurred to him that he was allowed to express outrage at the unfairness. Never mind being able to speak about one of the most important relationships of his life because of his guilt. His wife had helped him to be able to do both.<br/>
<br/>
Kenobi’s location was a state secret that had to be kept on security side. Queen Lina couldn’t know. Only Blue and Shizla and a few guards knew. Free, Vic and Marv, since they had been the Rothana guys he’d discovered. All were sworn to secrecy because nobody would believe. Cody conveniently absolving only himself of murder like that. As if he considered himself somehow special.<br/>
<br/>
Lina looked at him, “How do we send a message without antagonizing Vader further?”<br/>
<br/>
“He doesn’t know me. I’m going to Coruscant. I can see what the word is there,” Sotna reminded. She looked at her mother, “If I see how one gets an introduction. What do I do if I make contact?”<br/>
<br/>
--<br/>
<br/>
Sotna’s new identity was already registered at the dormitories in the Senate District, where she was about to start a year long legal scholarship and employment as a dormitory supervisor for the Legislative Youth. The scholarship was one of those opportunities the Republic had instituted, to teach underprivileged people to be more like them.<br/>
<br/>
Her mother had told her that although they had money and Sotna would want for nothing, Sotna should never forget that security would still follow her around in stores, just because of the tails on her head. So Sotna’s honored her mommy with her new name. Robin Stuff.<br/>
<br/>
Cody had been delighted when he made up her phony credentials and asked her to research philanthropic opportunities so that they could pay for buildings and put the ‘Stuff’ Name on them. “Come on, who wouldn’t want to be directed to the Stuff Center. The Stuff Arena. The Stuff Library.”<br/>
<br/>
Sotna had laughed at the stupid joke way too easily for Niki’s taste. Those two got along way too well. Like some kind of real father and daughter. Niki wasn’t sure why this bothered her. The fact that her own male progenitor was likely a rapist one way or another had not caused her distrust. It had happened before she was born. She decided quite fairly that her distrust of men was warranted based on more than enough experience and understanding. But she supposed Sotna had no reason to be afraid of much. Once she’d come to live with Niki, she had been showered with love. By everyone. She wasn’t constantly hindered by chains.<br/>
<br/>
Sotna responded, “Sounds like they would be magnets for supervillainy.”<br/>
<br/>
“Ah yeah,” Cody agreed, deadpan, “Those guys love their puns, ‘stuff’ is so versatile.”<br/>
<br/>
Niki couldn’t stop herself from laughing. “I would definitely agree to fund the ‘Stuff Museum’ on Coruscant,” She privately decided it would be a good place to stage controversial art expositions, like holostills of people pissing on each other.<br/>
<br/>
–<br/>
<br/>
Niki tried to imagine what her daughter would look like to that Sith monster. Would he ignore her? Would she be able to get close? If she did, what should her orders be? Negotiate or kill? He’d be able to anticipate anything. Niki had absolutely regretted not cutting him off higher, like at the chest, maybe take out the control panel. Or the neck. But she hadn’t been able to lift the gun higher to aim with a tube in her throat.<br/>
<br/>
Sotna was tall. In great shape, she had been doing her civic preparedness training with almost all men her whole life.<br/>
<br/>
Niki wasn’t even certain her baby girl had a dark side to exploit.<br/>
<br/>
Niki realized she had a lot of faith that if Sotna found herself in a situation as she had been in, Sotna would be able to take out the head. That’s as good as any mother could hope for, she supposed.<br/>
<br/>
“You will know what to do,” Niki told her as they sat around the gazebo that night.<br/>
<br/>
--<br/>
<br/>
Niki had never been one to assume the pomposity to declare that there was ONE all powerful Force CONTROLLING everything. Sounded to her like something a man made up. A man with a dick.<br/>
<br/>
It wasn’t the oneness she objected to, perhaps, it was that she refused the interpretation that one of anything was in an active state of being. Unless everything was.<br/>
<br/>
Niki’s sense of the universe, nonetheless, certainly acknowledged unseen powers. Even the blind could learn ways to pluck at strings in the dark. To most people, what she practiced was witchcraft, trying to use rituals and sympathetic magic to find the strings.<br/>
<br/>
The Republic had held the prevailing opinion that what she believed in was superstitious rubbish. The Empire had outlawed it as dangerous and corrupting and had sent many of its citizens away for reprogramming if it was practiced. To Niki, that just reinforced her suspicion that it was definitely a way to powers they were afraid of.<br/>
<br/>
When Niki had been jailed in the Imperial prison, the interrogators had fed her on her own insecurities, her fears, her pride, her confusion. But she was so used to them, it didn’t affect her like it might some others. Being faced with her dark side was like trying to see her own forehead.<br/>
<br/>
Since Niki had actually been in the presence of Darth Vader, she could associate a very specific feeling with him. Like a smell. He was strong enough to block out her thoughts, but she decided that just in case he looked to make a connection with her again, it would not go the way he thought.<br/>
<br/>
First, she needed to get herself into a state of readiness to help her focus. She descended the stairs to the lowest depths of the catacombs, into places where the Rishii birds had carved tunnels. She descended a spiral staircase into a chamber she was using as a research room. It was a crypt, an altar in the middle and shelves on the walls where bodies had lain. It had been a place the Separatist mine workers had used for drinking and eating their lunches. When the mine had become a work prison, it had been bricked up, since the workers didn’t have freedom of movement around the complex of tunnels. All was cleared years before when Niki arrived to sweep out the dust and re-use the space.<br/>
<br/>
Niki started off a visit the way she always did, with a series of cleaning rituals. Then she took her witching things out of their box. She assembled the circle. She said the creed she’d developed. Ran through the simple routine of motions. She put out the necessary objects. She meditated. Focusing all her energy on one person, one feeling.<br/>
<br/>
She sent out her purest emotion. Love.<br/>
<br/>
That was it. That was going to confuse him.<br/>
<br/>
She knew how to make a man lose interest in a thing.<br/>
<br/>
Niki didn’t expect to hear anything back. From what she understood, normals couldn’t. Not usually. She decided to have fun with it. She flooded her own mind with daydreams of saving him and living happily ever after. Then other things. Then filthier things than most men in the universe cared to hear about a woman doing to them. Then ridiculous things about his robotic parts. If someone was reading her mind, they would be shocked.<br/>
<br/>
Like a wave of light pulsing along the connection between them. It felt like nothing so much as a blink of recognition. Then it was gone.<br/>
<br/>
Then she was struck with a vision that gave her pleasure. Seeing him strangle Hutts to death. A thought entered her mind. Niki didn’t think it was her own, because she would have never thought something like this.<br/>
<br/>
“I’m like you.”<br/>
<br/>
"Yes," Niki accepted it as part of her little role play. It was something her character would say. She was very method.<br/>
<br/>
She felt she could see in her mind’s eye, though she was awake. She looked up into a red sky and saw dark creatures circling around a dark vortex. She was in the whirlwind, sucked up through the eye to come out opposite on the other side. Everything was blue and white.<br/>
<br/>
“Things can be the way you want them,” the voice hissed into her ear cone. It was too close.<br/>
<br/>
Suddenly Niki found a memory. She remembered the first time she’d heard ‘I love you’ from a man. The clear, true, remembered thought of a forcible rape, justified by the phrase, whispered into her ear cone while she screamed from the pain. A jarring thought. The connection was severed.<br/>
<br/>
Niki woke from the trance, bruises on her neck that she’d seen on a thousand clones in her lifetime. “Who are you?” she whispered.<br/>
<br/>
Niki was almost cheerful as she conducted banishing rituals and closed up the room. She filled her own consciousness with self-indulgent fantasies of his telling her that she was ‘like him’. Then she’d fantasized that she’d scared the piss out of him when some horrifying memories crossed her mind, as they did with some regularity.<br/>
<br/>
This was going to be fun. A game of ‘who has the worst childhood’ on a positively artistic level.<br/>
<br/>
Like her indeed. She was going to commit to being a total fan to a psycho level. He would never know if she was serious or ironic. Mind kark this, M’Lord.<br/>
<br/>
--<br/>
<br/>
Iego</p><p>They’d hiked all the way up the basalt mountain through the jungle vegetation. Remains of ancient walls could be seen here and there, with vines clinging to them. The villagers all came out to meet them. Cody gave the introductory speech, who the Dorn-Qek-Aurek was. Niner was standing at his right shoulder.<br/>
<br/>
“We are representatives of a Queen in the Abrion sector. She has sent us to ask if we can help the people of this planet, by consulting on safety and technology. We can show you how to build things. We could help move you to defensible ground to build your settlements.”<br/>
<br/>
“We can’t move far from our fields,” someone spoke up.<br/>
<br/>
“We could donate vehicles to help you. Or build a permanent funicular. My men, they are trained in public works construction,” Cody offered. The idea was possibly to set up a station there as part of their network. The association of Fett clone faces with good works was a large part of the D-Q-A’s off-world mission.<br/>
<br/>
“What do you ask in exchange?” one of the older people asked.<br/>
<br/>
“Nothing. Increased security, freedom from fear, it benefits all of us. My people have experience. We can train you to defend yourselves or we will help you do so.”<br/>
<br/>
“We didn’t ask for help,” a woman spoke up.<br/>
<br/>
“But we are asking to help you. Only tell us how,” Cody was much changed from his younger years. Asking instead of telling.<br/>
<br/>
“I know we will sleep better at night if we had help guarding the crops,” another guy said. “We can’t offer you much in return.”<br/>
<br/>
“The Queen of Abrion only wants your friendship,” Cody said sincerely, “As for myself and my men, for now, we would only like to share a hot meal. We’ve brought things with us.”<br/>
<br/>
Cody’s Queen had decided that in addition to using his strategic training defending against the Empire, Cody could also help people not to have to deal with bandits in addition to Imperial nonsense. Nobody could make any progress if nobody stopped all the thieving and robbery. People starved to death or got shot by pirates at an alarming rate in the Outer Rim. The Empire wasn’t their only enemy.<br/>
<br/>
It had been the queen’s plan to assemble a cooperative, have a network of friends on agrarian worlds. The DQA provided security and tech upgrades, and transport. They bought the produce, which could be distributed between allied settlements so that people in the cooperative were at a greatly decreased risk of famine.<br/>
<br/>
Cody hadn’t encouraged it outright, but he knew that in their sector, Lina was recognized as a powerful entity for her good works. No one outside of her community had seen the queen, all they had were her people’s stories. The face on the money. Nobody had ever forcibly declared she was ruler over anyone but her own people, but she was the only queen in the sector, so the title of Queen of Abrion went to her sort of de facto. She didn’t make laws. But she was respected and obviously had resources, if she could go around just giving away funiculars and the like. More often than not, people asked to send regards and gifts to her. People sometimes dedicated statues to her and put her name on buildings. Niki was always there to take advantage of a marketing opportunity once the friendship was forged.<br/>
<br/>
Since the people inevitably became obsessed with finding out about the hidden queen, Niki had published an edition of a book of Eriadan fairy tales, with illustrations Lina had drawn for her daughters. These had circulated even outside the sector, making its way into cheap book markets on Outer Rim worlds. Unsurprisingly, there was a lot of call for it on Eriadu.  Although, that far away, the Queen of Abrion was just a fairy tale, herself. But the book made Eriadu sound like a romantic place, perhaps to most people who’d never seen it, it was. Instead of the polluted, urban sprawling environment that it had become. Lina had grown up near the wilderness, on a subsistence farm in a village next to a jungle in a way of life that seemed out of another time.<br/>
<br/>
Cody’s favorite story been one about an enchanted princess who went around wearing a sewing needle in her hair. It meant, ‘help me’. A prince in jail, a girl brings him food. She had a needle in her hair. The fairy god mother had told the prince to pluck it out and the spell would be broken. Niki had adapted this one as an animated holo-vid. Eriadan authorities had quite a time trying to suppress it. The character design of the monster in the fairy tale that had imprisoned the princess had resembled Wilhuff Tarkin too closely. Bootleg copies were sold, though. The character had become a popular graffiti tag among rebellious Eriadan youth. And a popular prison tattoo. Niki considered that one of her masterpieces.<br/>
<br/>
As they sat down to a meal with the villagers, the children approached Cody’s mission team. The men were all wearing their new green patches on their uniforms. The guys handed out supplies. They were trained in basic medicine, engineering, architecture, their mission was good deeds. They could throw down militarily, they were still clones after all. But peace missions were nicer.<br/>
<br/>
“So has there been any sight of the Empire on this planet that you know of?” Cody asked. Some more remote places had never even heard of the Empire. These places were great markets for technology.<br/>
<br/>
“The what?”<br/>
<br/>
“Human beings like us, but in uniforms, or white armor?”<br/>
<br/>
“We heard of fighting. We heard rumors of wars, in other parts. White skeletons in a wave, like death. Fire follows. Then famine. Then plague,” they answered. “This is often the case. The cycles repeat. Times of destruction, times of regrowth.”<br/>
<br/>
“Not if they burn the jungle down, or poison it with their toxic defoliant,” Cody told them, “There are other ways. We can stop them. Make them go away. And if they come back, we will answer your call to defend you.”<br/>
<br/>
“How do we know?” a young girl questioned.<br/>
<br/>
“We are a people of honor,” Cody told them. “The queen wills us to be so.”<br/>
<br/>
–<br/>
<br/>
Scans revealed the Imperial encampment was about fifty clicks south. It was hosting an Imperial light cruiser. The markings were Moff Pi-Ying’s flagship.<br/>
<br/>
Cody was looking through a pair of war issue scopes. He glanced around the base and happened across an officer shouting abuse at Stormtroopers.<br/>
<br/>
“Well, well, well,” Cody handed the scopes to Niner. “Look what we have here. Isn’t that Lieutenant Kicky?”<br/>
<br/>
“Captain Kicky, now,” Niner viewed him in his uniform. “I guess no more Lahsbane run. Still, the Moff himself all the way out here? That cruiser is too aggressive. Probably the Moff knows they’re about to make a big collar and he wants in on it. Who do you imagine he is hunting, brother?”<br/>
<br/>
Cody feigned being offended, “And just what have *I* ever done to him? You’re the one he’d probably like to boss battle, Chief.”<br/>
<br/>
“Pretty sure you’re the clone they’re looking for, Hootkins,” Niner raised an eyebrow.<br/>
<br/>
“Then I guess I got an obligation to take the bait,” Cody hit a comlink on a protected frequency. “Bill Hootkins is a slave to his desires.”<br/>
<br/>
“You said it was gonna be fun,” Niner reminded.<br/>
<br/>
“I did say that, didn’t I?” Cody admitted. “Okay, so there are just a few of us here. I say we kidnap the good captain, or even the Moff if he’s with them. Keep him a day or two, see what he can tell us. Then send them back.”<br/>
<br/>
“That all we’re gonna do? No torture at all? Not even a little,” Niner sarcastically whined. Then he switched to his old Admiral Yularen impression, “Downright uncivilized!” Yularen was now in charge of the ISB.<br/>
<br/>
“We tell them to bring back our message. We want a representative to speak to the Senate,” Cody insisted.<br/>
<br/>
“Why you keep saying that? What use do we have for the damn Empire?” Niner asked.<br/>
<br/>
“Our audience will not be the Emperor, or even the elitist pricks in the Senate, but people. We are trying to speak to anyone who believes it doesn’t have to be this way.”<br/>
<br/>
“A little disingenuous. I thought the rumor was, the Empire was paying you in illegal aid and weapons,” Niner admitted.<br/>
<br/>
“Not for a while. I think they’ve just been grateful I haven’t been pressing them. Honestly, though, it is actually easier to steal from them than to wait for their secret weapons ‘donations’ to our cause. Most of the Imperial officers are stealing or illegally selling ‘surplus’. They’re happy to let us steal a few things to cover for their embezzling. They can just blame us for their problems. We’re, you know, useful garbage.”<br/>
<br/>
“Artificially created humans peddling political ideas? No one will listen,” Niner was cynical, like most brothers. They had never been treated very often as full human beings, so they assumed most people didn’t afford them the slightest regard.<br/>
<br/>
“I will not be the representative,” Cody specified. “Our children will be.”<br/>
<br/>
That confused Niner, “You don’t really trust them to let your children just leave...”<br/>
<br/>
“No, don’t be ridiculous. I don’t expect them to accept it for years. But we’re low priority and the way they squabble, it will be years before they come after us. By then, our position is fortified. Our children will be older. They will be ready to meet with whatever government takes over for this shit show. Our ideas will have been recognized by then because we will have had the time to prove ourselves.”<br/>
<br/>
“So you are planning to set up a hereditary monarchy?” Niner didn’t find it distasteful necessarily. What were clones, if not family oriented?<br/>
<br/>
“OUR children means the entire second generation. Surely one of them will lead eventually. Sooner than we know it, it will be them doing these peace missions. Finding partners, living their lives as full sentient beings,” Cody clarified. Although, he did have high hopes for the future status of his own children of his flesh. The ones to whom he had contributed the skin cells to provide the nuclei to inseminate an egg cell of his wife. They were all so wonderful in different ways.<br/>
<br/>
The process of donating skin cells sounded patently unromantic, especially compared with how most humans reproduced. But it had actually become a very emotional for clones, an almost ceremonial occasion when a brother would go to the hospital to have cells extracted to create a child of his flesh. Something he could call uniquely his. Denied fatherhood for so long, Jango Fett clones tended to take after their father, as doting papas.<br/>
<br/>
Some of their adoptees had already come of age. Sotna and the ‘Intelligence Service’ had been early examples. They’d begun to contribute their adult share. It seemed a paradigm everyone hoped the born children could follow. </p><p>--  </p><p>The DQA team kneeled around in a circle, while Cody sketched a rough plan of the ship in the dirt with his finger. “We have two targets. Captain Kicky and Moff Pee-ying,” Cody realized as soon as he said it.<br/>
<br/>
The brothers snickered. He sighed and went on, “If they’re anywhere, they’re probably in the administrative suite of the ship, in this section.”<br/>
<br/>
Niner contributed, “On this type of ship, the high ranking guys spend most of their days in meeting rooms arguing. Those are here. My take, the Moff is probably supervising this personally because he does not want another screw up. Grand Moff Karkin’ doesn’t suffer fools.” The others laughed at the juvenile nickname.<br/>
<br/>
Cody shrugged, “I think it doesn’t really seem like we need more than one or two people on that. I need the rest of you to pull a ‘Blood Initiation’."<br/>
<br/>
“How's that on this model?” one Rothana brother asked. They didn’t have much direct training in Imperial components to intuit how the parts related together.<br/>
<br/>
Another brother beside him did a few gestures at the dirt diagram that indicated directions. The first one watched closely and had memorized it. He had never been on this type of ship, but his people all had training in how to absorb information quickly.<br/>
<br/>
The men all nodded, except Niner. He wasn’t sure what that was, but it sounded cool. There were standard plans among the DQA. They were taught in mandated military training for all members. And in the schools. To amuse the kids, the grown ups had given all the plans really cool sounding names. ‘Blood Initiation’ was to loosen bolts at strategic locations on the outside of a ship, so that if it gave chase, it would have parts fall off. Cody and Niner took the ‘extraction’ duties. Niner considered that if their prisoners proved themselves to be pains in the ass, he could just shoot them without having much remorse. Both men were just so awful. Niner had spent a good part of his time listening to communications aboard ship between Imperial officers and how they talked when they thought it was just them around.<br/>
<br/>
They snuck on to the ship wearing Stormtrooper armor, looking not a bit out of the ordinary. Cody punched in the ISB codes to a wall panel to locate the whereabouts of the individuals aboard the ship according to their code cylinders.<br/>
<br/>
“Your friend the captain is in meeting room 4141. The good Moff is in his quarters sleeping,” Cody read. He and Niner automatically coordinated their wrist coms.<br/>
<br/>
“Back at our rendezvous point outside in one tick,” Cody nodded in sync with Niner.<br/>
<br/>
“What do we do then,” Niner asked.<br/>
<br/>
“We act casual and walk them out. Nobody will challenge the bosses,” Cody responded. That plan was called ‘Dragon Fire’. “If I’m not at the rendezvous point, don’t wait for me. I can find my own way out.”<br/>
<br/>
–<br/>
<br/>
To Niner, it didn’t feel strange walking around an Imperial ship. He’d been aboard ship most of his life after Kamino. But he’d always had his face exposed. People knew what he was the moment they saw him and there always seemed to be some who abused him very personally because of it. It was a strange sensation, being anonymous. It felt almost like being back home on Kamino. He couldn’t keep himself from saluting everyone he saw. He felt like a kid again. He marched right into the meeting room 4141, looked right at good old Kicky, and said to him in his best fake Corellian accent, “Captain Sir! There has been a threat on your life! You must come with me!”<br/>
<br/>
The captain had practically run, with all the other officers in the room close behind.<br/>
<br/>
“If his life is threatened, all of ours are!” one yelled at Niner.<br/>
<br/>
“Yes,” Niner was feeling crazily intrepid, “Yes, that’s true! But we must mention this to no one until we are to your evacuation transport.”<br/>
<br/>
“Excuse me, it was my life that was threatened. It could be any one of these vipers!” The captain had obviously been spending his time making more enemies in the work place.<br/>
<br/>
“Well, look, let’s just let Lord Vader sort it out,” Niner couldn’t be sure, but he thought he smelled pants filled with crap. One of them cried.<br/>
<br/>
Niner had no trouble getting them outside. He reached their shuttle and stunned the Imps with his weapon. He got them in binders and waited for the rest of the team to assemble.<br/>
<br/>
–</p><p>Cody had taken off the helmet when he reached the door of the Moff’s quarters. He didn’t have the code cylinder for access. His head ran through a few options for how to proceed.<br/>
<br/>
Then something strange happened. The door panel hissed open on its own.<br/>
<br/>
That was the moment Cody thought he was dead.<br/>
<br/>
–<br/>
<br/>
The other members of the team had returned and Niner had ensured that they had the prisoners aboard ship and that they were ready to run if they were detected. Cody still wasn’t back.<br/>
<br/>
–<br/>
<br/>
Cody walked into the room unafraid. There was not a thing behind that door that would have surprised him.<br/>
<br/>
That fat slob Moff Pi-Ying was just sitting there in a chair looking terrified. He wasn’t even looking at Cody. Cody followed his gaze. There, sitting in a bigger, nicer chair, was Grand Moff Tarkin himself. Cody was not invited to sit.<br/>
<br/>
“Well, Commander, only you could be so bold. To attempt to assassinate a high-ranking Imperial official in his own bed. You have spirit.”<br/>
<br/>
“We both know he’s not worthy of his office,” Cody looked at him directly in the cold dead eyes.<br/>
<br/>
“It’s not about him, I could rid myself of him without the slightest trouble,” Tarkin stated directly. He could have shot the guy dead and Stormtroopers would just come in and cleaned up the mess. He could have done the same with Cody. Instead, he just stunned him. Cody didn’t fall after one, so Tarkin looked annoyed and stunned him again.<br/>
<br/>
–<br/>
<br/>
Tarkin ordered his personal Eriadan guard to load Cody onto his ship and went back to his home planet directly. To his own estate. Cody was a secret prisoner. Though the Outer Rim was his jurisdiction, Tarkin couldn’t have just shot anyone inconvenient to him. Not without the Emperor’s say so. Not yet, anyway. </p><p>–<br/>
Niner was left to stage the escape. He and the young Rothana guys on the mission team lifted off and steered in front of the cruiser on purpose. It took off to give chase, but the thrusters detached from the ship and spiraled away like firecrackers. The front of the cruiser nosedived down to earth. Niner’s team flew off into space. </p><p>–</p><p>Eriadu</p><p><br/>
</p><p>Cody woke up in a bedroom, one with no windows.<br/>
<br/>
A droid came in and led him through cleaning and dressing in something his lord would find presentable.<br/>
<br/>
Cody was stripped of all of his armor and components. He was grateful he had been wearing a disguise instead of his own things. He didn’t want his possessions to fall into the Empire’s hands. They would no doubt be used to humiliate and scare his people.<br/>
<br/>
Cody didn’t speak a word, but put on the simple garments he was given. He submitted to the binders. He was then marched in to Tarkin’s dining room. Tarkin was eating. He did not invite Cody to sit.<br/>
<br/>
“Why is Lord Vader trying to find you?” he asked as if he already knew.<br/>
<br/>
“Is he? I thought he was just acting like any Imperial agent, doing his Emperor’s bidding,” Cody responded.<br/>
<br/>
“His Excellency believes that he might be tempted to ally with you for sentimental reasons,” Tarkin seemed to be admitting something. Cody wasn’t sure what was truth and what was lie, or if Tarkin even knew the whole truth.<br/>
<br/>
“You know I won’t tell you, whether I know or not,” Cody said with no fear. He looked around at the Eriadan guard. Every last one of them was a local. Tarkin was their ruler.<br/>
<br/>
Tarkin thought he was fearsome, but he had nothing on a Sith.<br/>
<br/>
“And the entire galaxy knows you’re nothing but an inconvenient biohazard. A filth. A stain of shit that needs to be cleansed from the gene pool. We could wipe you out in a moment,” Tarkin didn’t say it with any emotion or satisfaction.<br/>
<br/>
For some reason Cody felt better having the man say what he really meant for once, without all the tight lipped smiles and outright lies framed as ‘diplomacy’.<br/>
<br/>
“Commander, your days in this galaxy are numbered. You, my friend, are out-dated equipment. The day will come when everything you have built will go up in flames,” Tarkin told him.<br/>
<br/>
“You can get rid of me. I have people trained to replace me in everything I do. My people won’t skip a beat. We have plan after plan, every possible security measure,” Cody wasn’t telling anything Tarkin hadn’t deduced.<br/>
<br/>
“Your brand of siege warfare is at an end, I’m afraid. No measure of defenses will protect from a weapon that can destroy an entire planet at once,” Tarkin looked at him with those dead eyes.<br/>
<br/>
“This can be out strategized, everyone knows what a stupid gamble it is to put all your faith in one single thing,” Cody was still hopeful, if much less confident.<br/>
<br/>
“We’re not just making one, we have a fleet planned behind it. With every progressive construction, the next one will cost less and work better. Soon, they won’t have the flaws. It’s glorious, I have seen it, it is the Emperor’s vision.”<br/>
<br/>
Cody just listened, as if Tarkin was his better.<br/>
<br/>
Tarkin sounded a little like he was relieved at getting rid of a pest, “A second, then a third, wave after wave. Until we have the galaxy under total control. What do you have to say for yourself, and be honest. I really want to experience my total and complete triumph.”<br/>
<br/>
Cody was bored. Nothing he didn’t expect.<br/>
<br/>
“Your only hope now is to join us,” Tarkin surprised him.<br/>
<br/>
“What!?” Cody thought he must not have heard right. “I can’t side with you. I know things you’ve done. I know what kind of a person you are.”<br/>
<br/>
“Did you honestly believe his Excellency would have let you survive this long if he didn’t have a plan for you. Your exile to Rishi was a test. On which you seem to have performed well. And you’ve already rewarded yourself handsomely. His Excellency enjoys putting interesting creatures in the arena pit to see which is the strongest. His Excellency has enjoyed watching you crawl up from the pit with blood on your maw. We are ready to bring you back into the fold.”<br/>
<br/>
Tarkin indicated, a holo-viewer came to life with a blue hologram of ‘His Excellency’. The shriveled shrouded creature.<br/>
<br/>
“Commander Cody. You have survived,” his voice creaked.<br/>
<br/>
“No thanks to you,” was all Cody hazarded.<br/>
<br/>
“The Outer Rim can be difficult. The Empire is interested in security as much as you yourself are. We wish to keep what is ours, as do you. We also may have need of mercenary labor for our more delicate issues. Ally with us and you may yet see your sector under your control,” Tarkin proposed.<br/>
<br/>
So the brothers would do all the work, and the Empire would disavow any knowledge. They could be the brute squad of the sector with Imperial equipment. Cody knew this was the safe bet.<br/>
<br/>
Then it kind of amused Cody that Sheev thought he could conduct his temptation over holo-com. Cody realized he didn’t yet rate a face to face.<br/>
<br/>
“What are you so afraid of?” Cody didn’t crack.<br/>
<br/>
Wilhuff waved a hand, “I tire of this game. Now I will tell you what will happen. We will obliterate every last one of you to ash, back to the cosmic dust from which you came. Then we will deny your existence. Then question it. Then demand proof. A few generations, you are a lost civilization, a myth of a sunken city. Now, what will happen here is that you will be tortured. We will extract every bit of useful information as I deem fit will be pursued to the fullest. Then, we will clean you up and let you read a statement of loyalty to the Emperor to send to your people.”<br/>
<br/>
“Wilhuff, it feels to me like you haven’t yet realized you’ve been kicked into the pit. I bet there’s no one his worship won’t kick in here.” Then Cody sighed, and began just the way he had rehearsed a thousand times. In perfect Eriadan, which Tarkin could understand, but his guards understood better, “You know my wife comes from this world. She was a typical village girl. Her mum always told this funny story about how Old Lord Tarkin had a bit of a penchant for raping of village girls when he was out hunting on the Carrion. And according to her mother, she was the product of one of these rapings. Which is funny. Because that would make my wife’s mom your half sister, if I’m not mistaken. That means it’s your niece with my permanent handprint on her ass because she screws me so good and so often. When I break the hell out of here, the first thing I’m gonna do is give it to the mother of my five children good and sloppy, then I’m going fishing….” Cody was laughing so hard he was able to cover for the tears that were coming now, whether he wanted them to or not. He honestly thought his time had come. Tarkin had him dragged off to a cell.<br/>
<br/>
At least he was going out well, Cody thought. As a scholar of history, he could appreciate how many events came down to dick measuring contests. It felt exactly like himself.  </p><p> </p><p>END BOOK 1</p>
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